


Vessel

by Anonymous



Category: Yu-Gi-Oh! Duel Monsters (Anime & Manga)
Genre: Alternate Universe, Kidnapping, M/M, Magic, millennium items not made of people
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2021-01-02
Updated: 2021-02-13
Packaged: 2021-03-12 08:14:29
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 7
Words: 23,508
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28507281
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/
Summary: Yugi lived a comfortable life in Domino City until he was kidnapped off the streets and thrown into a room with an eerie golden puzzle. Told to solve it or die, he reluctantly begins its assembly — but quickly discovers that not all is as it seems, and the consequences of finishing it range further than he could've ever imagined.
Relationships: Atem/Mutou Yuugi, Mutou Yuugi/Yami Yuugi
Comments: 80
Kudos: 111
Collections: Anonymous





	1. Chapter 1

Yugi was two sips into his traditional crunch-time quadruple-shot latte when large hands grabbed him from behind and threw him against the ground, upending the scalding drink all over his favorite purple shirt.

"That burns," Yugi tried, or even a "What the heck!", but only eked out a pained wheeze. As he hit the pavement, all that registered was the harsh scrape of asphalt against his cheek and the panicked thump in his chest. 

One breath, in and out, and then he gathered himself. The impromptu self-defense lessons Jounouchi and Honda had administered since their high-school days told him that one, this might not be an average Domino City mugger, and two, he had to make a stand anyways. He steeled himself at the sound of his unknown attacker closing in and vowed to do the best he could.

Ignoring the stinging of his scraped palms, Yugi pushed himself off the ground and averted his gaze from the fluorescent glare of the lit streetlights. He dodged the dark flash of a punch and rocketed towards the direction it came from. Another rush of air came his way; he wove to the left and lashed out with a puncturing jab. From the ensuing grunt and staggering shuffle, it sounded like a direct hit.

Yugi took one moment to indulge in a relieved satisfaction before frantically recalling the instructions Jounouchi and Honda had spent years drilling into his head. He whipped around and bolted, screaming, "HELP! SOMEBODY HELP!"

The late hour meant empty streets, but if he got close enough back to work, there would undoubtedly be security officers circling the perimeter, keeping an eye on other employees putting in last-minute work before the end-of-year deadline. There, they could handle whoever was after him, and he would be safe.

Or so he hoped.

Yugi heard a shout and then the rapid beat of footsteps hot on his heels. He stifled a gasp and sped up. What was going on? Why were they  _ following _ him? He had just been taking a quick break from the last-minute production push by going to the 24/7 café for a coffee, and then...

There wasn't any time to wipe the furious tears streaming down his face. His breath grew ragged; his soles ached as he sprinted along the silent sidewalk in his dress shoes. "Help!"

He ran across a deserted intersection. Imagined or no, he could practically feel the pants of his pursuer on his neck. Four more blocks, and he would be safe. Just four more blocks!

"Hel—"

As he flew past a news kiosk, an arm shot out of the normally-closed shutters and clocked him right on the temple. Yugi crashed to the ground, blinking furiously to remove the stars from his eyes. He rose halfway, but a foot landed squarely on his back, grinding him into the ground.

"Someone!" he croaked. No, no…

He caught a sickly-pale face out of the corner of his eye: a foreigner with pockmarked skin and unkempt stubble. "Shut up," he said, and then Yugi knew no more.

* * *

He awoke in a haze, blinking slowly as a stretch of striped fabric came into view. A low thrumming vibrated through his body, jostling him from where he lay. Was that an airline safety card in front of him? Where was he?

_ Thrown to the ground. A street chase. His latte! _

He jerked upright. That's right, he had been running away from...whoever those people were, and then…

He looked down and discovered that while he had passed out, his wrists had been zip-tied together in front of him and his legs cuffed together. A safety seatbelt was tightened snugly across his waist with some sort of extra lock around the buckle. He gulped and scanned his surroundings. Definitely a plane, which put a damper on any escape plan he could've thought of — not that he was thinking of much besides  _ oh god _ .

The nearby windows all had their beige covers drawn, hiding any hint of the outside sky. The cabin lights were dimmed such that the only light came from small red LEDs on the floor, spaced every half-meter or so. Yugi strained at the belt strap to survey the rest of the plane, but the taut length and leg cuffs kept him firmly glued downwards. The interior appeared to be vacant from what little he could glean, but he kept quiet anyways, wary of attracting his kidnappers' attention.

He squirmed, now hyper-aware of the chill blowing directly down his neck from the overhead vent and the stickiness of his khakis, sweaty after his sprint down the streets of Domino City. His mouth tasted stale from his forced sleep and the scratches on his palms stung from where he had scraped them against the concrete. His now-stained shirt sent a prickling, raw sensation shooting through his chest every time it brushed against his skin.

He took a deep breath and went over the facts. He had been grabbed off the streets, knocked unconscious, and stuffed into a plane. He didn't know where it was going, nor the reason for his capture. Yugi's heart rate started to increase. His chest was most likely burned, and he was tied securely in place without any means of escape. His breaths sharpened. He didn't have his phone. He was alone.

Yugi's mouth trembled with the effort of holding back his tears. But as hopelessness washed over him in an overwhelming tide, he fell under its waves, breaking out into harsh, jagged cries.

How long would it take before his friends would notice he had gone missing? Would Jounouchi find something amiss first, after texts went unanswered? Would Anzu think something had gone wrong, after he missed their weekly video call? Yugi's sobs petered out as he thought in dizzying spirals. Of all people, it would probably be Kaiba. Yugi was, after all, his team's technical lead — the CEO would undoubtedly raise hell when code changes slowed. Yugi imagined the irate young man storming into his empty office, demanding an absent Yugi explain the delay, and burst into a fresh fit of hysteria.

And then, his grandfather. If he were killed, there might be nothing left to cremate, no bones to pick through to ensure he left the world right-side up. After all that his grandfather had sacrificed, he would repay this love with nothing but grief and an empty urn. Yugi quieted, the panic crystallizing into a hard, deepset terror.

He slumped in his seat. The cabin lights flickered on at some point but Yugi barely twitched, trapped by the image of his grandfather, still and alone by their family grave.

"I see you're awake, princess."

Yugi took a bleary glance. It was the foreigner Yugi had seen before, clearer now in the light. Greasy blond bangs escaped from the bottom of his bandana and fell in clumps over a battered pair of sunglasses. His stubble was even patchier than Yugi remembered, shorn unevenly from his chin to his throat. But nothing was more distinctive than the leer he wore, encouraging Yugi to lean as far away as he could.

"What, nothing to say to me? Guess you learned to keep your trap shut."

A rush of defiance filled Yugi's chest, almost welcoming in its contrast to the chill of the airplane and of the fear that had encased his heart. This man thought that because he had run Yugi down, isolated him, and taunted him, he had broken his spirit. Yugi wouldn't give him that satisfaction.

He lifted his chin to look directly at the man's face, blanked his expression, and said nothing.

The man closed in and rested a hand on the seat in front. Yugi fought hard to keep his face still as an unpleasant mix of rank sweat and faded aftershave radiated from the man's body, violently overpowering the sterile non-smell of the plane. "C'mon. You really wanna just sit there?"

Yugi thought,  _ Kaiba during quarterly reviews, _ and did his level best to summon that imperial, unimpressed stare.

He couldn't see the man's eyes through the dark lenses, but he heard the creak of fabric as the man tightened his grip before retreating. "Probably pissing yourself! Just sit back and relax… we'll be there soon."

The man's words rang strangely in Yugi's head, seemingly mismatched with his lips. He trudged away down the aisle and disappeared behind a cloth curtain separating Yugi's section from the others. Yugi waited in a tense, alert stillness for a few moments. Once it seemed that the man would not return, Yugi collapsed as much as his restraints would allow.

What a jerk! Yugi had at least been able to glean bits. The man's Japanese had been pitch-perfect despite his obviously foreign appearance; his syntax and slang were like any other regular in the local pachinko parlor his grandfather used to frequent. It was strange, but perhaps Yugi's kidnappers were tied to yakuza? Unlikely, given that he was on a plane, but Yugi clutched at whatever he could.

After a long while of thinking (but only in circles), a loud clanking ran through the cabin and the plane's vibrations intensified. They were evidently close to their destination; the landing gear had kicked in. Yugi idly wondered if he should expect an announcement from the pilot, thought of hearing his kidnapper's voice again, and flinched. 

The man reappeared as if he had been summoned, only this time clutching some small turquoise object. Yugi prayed for the man to trip and fall somehow during his march down the aisle, but no such luck. Before he knew it, the man was again right up in Yugi's space.

Now that he was so close, Yugi could see the object for what it was: a delicately-wrought box, one that wouldn't look out of place in his grandfather's sketch collection of his "glory days." Its surface was dotted liberally with tiny golden hieroglyphs, and the lid featured a large, stylized serpent rising from a dark sea. The man flicked open the lid and an eerie light spilled out, casting an odd glow over the man's hand.

Yugi did  _ not  _ like the look of that.

The man poked a meaty finger into the box and withdrew it, now thoroughly coated in a violet-shining sludge. The man bared his white teeth in a mocking grin upon noticing Yugi's discomfort. "Hold still, princess." He reached his hand forward.

Yugi squirmed away, but there was no way to evade as tied down as he was. The man dropped the box with his other hand and gripped the back of Yugi's head, holding him firmly in place. He poked Yugi right between the eyebrows and Yugi squeezed his eyes shut. The man's finger moved around his forehead in some undeterminable pattern, leaving a slimy, cold sensation wherever it touched. It was thankfully all over in a matter of seconds and the man's finger withdrew at the same time he released Yugi's head. Yugi opened his eyes tentatively and blinked.

And blinked again. Why was it still dark? His heart sped up again. What had the man done to him?

The man spoke terrifyingly close, totally unseen. "Don't bother batting your lashes — it's not gonna work!" He broke into an uproarious laughter.

Yugi's breath hitched. He couldn't see anything, no matter how many times he blinked or used his shoulder to rub at his eyes. He kept at it, disregarding the possibility of his kidnapper's presence. Nothing was working. Even as Yugi's ears popped as the plane began to descend, he continued to furiously scrub at his now-wet eyes, praying without hope that his sight would be as miraculously restored as it was taken away.

What was  _ happening _ to him?

He rattled in his seat as the plane hit the tarmac and rolled jerkily to a stop. He trembled, having finally given up on restoring his sight, and almost wanted to laugh. What more could they — whoever  _ they  _ were — take from him?

Then another voice, smoother than the man before: "Aw shit," it said quietly.

Yugi jumped as a warm cloth was pressed to his eyes, dabbing at the tears. He twisted away but the cloth followed, gently but firmly wiping away every trace of his earlier crying jag. Right as it left, the cuffs around his legs fell away, then the seatbelt across his lap. A rush of air, and then a warm hand gripped his upper arm, tugging him upright.

Yugi followed the motion. What good would it do to fight back at this point? The only consolation was that this person was clearly not the man from before — a different voice, for one, and this person thankfully did not reek of sweat. It was a clean smell instead, like fresh soil and sun-baked clay, like his grandfather after returning from a dig.

He ached for him fiercely.

The hand guided him out of the seat and down what Yugi presumed to be the aisle, pulling him along by the arm. It was dead silent, absent of the usual deplaning noises of passengers removing their luggage and the crew's farewells.

He was maneuvered around a tight corner. Yugi heard a "Watch your step," before he stepped onto a hard, rattling surface and his body hit a wall of cold, dry air. Yugi stumbled and instinctively reached out to steady himself, but his bound wrists prevented any further movement. Another hand quickly grabbed him around the waist and stopped him from falling down entirely.

"Aw, is our princess having trouble getting to the carriage?" the voice of the first kidnapper mocked, faraway.

Yugi recoiled and the hands around him tightened. "Shut up and get the car ready." the person behind him snapped. "Going down stairs." he continued, addressing Yugi.

Yugi edged forward, feeling out the dropoff with the edge of his shoe. "Slow," the second kidnapper cautioned.

Yugi bit back a retort on the tip of his tongue and did as instructed, creeping down as best he could. When he faltered, a hand returned to steady him. 

After descending what felt like a hundred steps, his feet hit a smooth, hard surface unlike the metallic grid structure before. The hand on his arm pulled him forward and then tapped on his head as he was guided into the interior of what was presumably some vehicle.

As the second person buckled him in and then clicked the door shut, Yugi thought absently that he ought to have fought and called for help as he did in Domino City. But he was just so tired and… he couldn't  _ see _ . All the confidence that had filled him, imagining what Jounouchi and Honda would say to him, or what Kaiba would do in this situation — all of it seemed to have deserted him in his abject solitude. He fumbled half-heartedly at the seatbelt buckle but yielded quickly and leaned back in the seat.

The car rumbled to life beneath him. After what felt like a half hour, the smooth road transitioned to a bumpy, uneven surface that sent Yugi constantly bouncing in his seat. Small rocks crunched underneath the tires as they continued down whatever path his kidnappers had in mind.

They drove so long in silence that he began to doze despite the discomfort. A faint sunlight warmed his cheek and lulled him into a half-sleep. Surely, they wouldn't go to all this trouble to just dump his body in the middle of nowhere…

Before he knew it, the car came to a stop and the engine shut off. Two doors opened then shut, and finally it was his turn to be pulled out of the car. The first kidnapper, from the smell of it, unbuckled him and yanked him standing. He steered Yugi along a meandering path, unrelenting even as Yugi stumbled and sand poured into his shoes. "Move it!" he barked.

Yugi bit his lip in frustration, but shuffled forward as fast as he could despite the weariness weighing him down. The man jerked him to a stop after some time, opened what sounded like a metal door, and pushed him onto a carpeted area. Instead of the recycled air of the car, or the chill of the outdoors, it was now warm, if a bit musty.

"Here he is, boss."

Yugi startled. Was there another person in front of him? His abductor's firm grasp prevented him from going anywhere.

"Wonderful." a new, hissing voice said. "Let him sit, the boy looks dead on his feet."

A mean laugh, and Yugi was pushed into a chair. He was too tired to even bristle at the remark.

"You may go."

Thankfully for his nose, the kidnapper retreated. Some scraping sounds, a door opening and closing, and the stench of sweat was gone entirely. Yugi wriggled in his seat uneasily — who was it this time?

"Now then," the voice continued, "shall we remove your binding?" It clicked sharply with its tongue, and then in-between one blink and the next, Yugi's sight returned in full force.

His surroundings came to him in several disbelieving scans. He was now in a small, whitewashed room with a large skylight high above and no windows. A twin bed with a thin blanket was tucked in one corner by a standing lamp; a bedraggled potted plant in another. A small gap in the wall to Yugi's right revealed an equally tiny washroom within.

Before him stood a person with yellow slits for eyes and dark hair, so thin and tall it was as if they had been pulled at both ends by some invisible force. One spindly hand hung loosely at their side; the other grasped something that looked like an elongated carving fork as long as they were tall, topped with a strange black blob. They stared at Yugi unmoving, unblinking. Only the constant dramatic flare of their nostrils gave any hint that they were alive. Yugi thought to jump out of his chair and make a break for it, but something about the eyes — their unceasing attention, the hungry look — told Yugi to hold as still as possible.

The person broke into a slow, unnerving smile, gums a startling black against their sharp teeth. "Welcome, o vessel of the king."


	2. Chapter 2

_ Welcome, o vessel of the king. _

Yugi sat still, unsure of what to make of the pronouncement. Had he heard them correctly? King? There weren't any kings around Domino City nor in the rest of Japan for that matter. Yugi wasn't — he wasn't —

"I'm Japanese." he blurted. "I, um, think you may have gotten the wrong person?"

The person frowned and walked towards him, tilting the forked scepter directly at his face.

Some part of Yugi decided he had, quite frankly, hit his nonsense quota for the day. He sprang off his seat, ran to the door behind him, and slammed against it, gasping in pain as his shoulder met unyielding metal. Not exactly what he had hoped for, but he took a deep breath and shouted with all the air in his lungs, "Help!"

"Enough."

Yugi's body froze with that one word, mid-shove against the door. He tried to budge to no avail, tried to scream but no sound emerged. Helpless and terrified, he could do nothing but watch as the person drew close until he was flush at Yugi's side. The person's unblinking eyes fixed upon him without reprieve, weighing him down to steal frozen breath from his lungs.

This wasn't — this wasn't  _ real _ . People couldn't just freeze each other with words, or blind them with weird glowing paint — this was real life! Yugi willed himself to wake up from the nightmare, begged for some kind of sign that things would just go back to  _ normal _ . 

"While the taste of your fear is quite enjoyable… your shrieking is intolerable." they said.

They tapped the long rod against the floor, and Yugi watched in horror as his leather choker unbuckled itself and fell to the ground. They reached out and traced some series of symbols on Yugi's throat with a cold finger, chanting under their breath. Would they take away Yugi's voice, as his sight had been stolen? Yugi had wondered what he could possibly lose next, and it seemed like he was about to find out.

They withdrew and studied his throat coolly. "That will do." They stepped back and clicked their tongue.

Just as before, Yugi came unstuck all at once. His legs collapsed underneath him and Yugi completed a slide to the floor, boneless with the relief of unexpected survival.

What… what was that even about?

"Now," they said, startling Yugi, "what is it you wanted to say?"

From their respective positions, Yugi crumpled on the floor, this person looming over him — it made him feel small in a way he had not since befriending Jounouchi and Honda nearly fifteen years ago. Yugi gulped, eyes fixed on the other's dangerously placid expression. "Wh-what?"

They bent closer, casting their shadow directly over him. "Repeat what you were saying, now that I have corrected your tongue." Their face turned amused. "Or shall I wrench it from your mind?"

Yugi wasn't sure what  _ mind-wrenching _ entailed, but he wasn't too keen to find out. "I, just. I think you have the wrong person. Pardon me."

They straightened and laughed. "Is that all?" They turned their back on Yugi and strode back to their previous position in the center of the room. "Come, Vessel. Return to your seat. There is no need for your hysterics."

Unsettled by the mercurial shifts of this new, unknown captor, Yugi slowly pushed himself off the carpet by resting on the balls of his feet and launching upwards, albeit somewhat unsteadily. He walked back to the chair with all the dignity he could muster. The person's gaze intensified as soon as Yugi sat, pinning him down firmly.

"Well then." Their tone hardened. "Shall I make myself clear? You are the vessel whom I have sought. There have been no mistakes and I will not tolerate further questioning on this matter. Do you understand?" They were nigh-shouting by the end, bony knuckles stretched tight around the forked staff.

Yugi gulped.

"Speak."

"Y-yes." Yugi hated the unsuppressable tremor in his voice. Get it together, he admonished himself, but the constant weight of his captor's voice kept him off-balance.

"Excellent." Their gloating was wholly undisguised. "Vessel, you have been brought here to fulfill your purpose."

Yugi breathed deeply. Purpose. That was important; that meant they needed him for something. And that meant he had some leverage. "Not 'vessel'; I have a name," he said quietly, testing the limits.

The pressure of their attention grew, almost palpable in its enormity. "Oh? Please, feel free to share."

Yugi glanced up and recoiled instinctively. There was something yawning in their face, a naked hunger dangerous in its edges. The wrongness of it all nearly held Yugi back, but he steeled himself and said, "It's Mutou Yugi. And I have no idea what you're talking about!"

A dark glee lit their features. "Mutou Yugi… yes. Thank you."

As soon as they spoke his name aloud, a shudder rippled through Yugi's chest and his heart skipped a beat. His vision swam and ears rang for a few disorienting moments, and he swayed in his seat, unmoored in space. Nausea rose in his throat. It was like a hand had gripped him somewhere deep, shook him, and then left a slimy impression of its fingerprints behind.

By the time he had recovered from his sudden bout of dizziness, they had acquired a medium-sized golden box carefully cradled under one arm. Like the turquoise box Yugi had encountered on the plane, this one too featured etched hieroglyphs encircling its body. Only this time, a large stylized eye stared directly out instead of a snake. Its lid tapered at the sides, akin to hipped temple roofs. Hopefully, this one wouldn't contain any glowing sludge like the first.

They held the box out. Yugi raised an eyebrow and gestured limply, deadpan, with his bound wrists.

Instead of cutting the ties as Yugi hoped, they simply set the box down onto the carpet. Continuing as if nothing were amiss, they said, "Mutou Yugi, you will solve the puzzle within and surrender your body to the sealed god-king."

Yugi fought the urge to vomit as his name left the other's lips, an awful pulling sensation gripping him under the ribs. Surrender his  _ body _ ? "Sealed 'god-king'? What are you even talking about? Who are you?"

"I am one who has waited for the god-king's release for many years."

That was just as unhelpful as everything he had said before. Fine. So they wanted him to solve some puzzle, undoubtedly just as creepy as everything else Yugi had seen and wanted to unsee. Yugi pushed a little further. "And what if I don't?" 

They smiled. Yugi recoiled. 

"I have waited three thousand years for a suitable Vessel," they said pleasantly. 

They tapped the base of their strange staff against the carpet. With nary a sound, a formless, dark void seeped out of the double prongs at the base and made its sinuous way over to his chair. It twined around his ankles and twisted up to encircle his torso in a freezing coil. Yugi shuddered beneath its weight, then let out an alarmed squeak as it began to squeeze, slowly but surely, compressing his flesh. His joints creaked in protest; his lungs fought for air fruitlessly.

"But to a god like me? Time is nothing. I can wait as long as needed for a new, more obedient one... do you understand?" 

There were several pieces of that statement that sent alarm bells through Yugi's head, but as far as riddles went, it wasn't one of the harder ones he had solved. He nodded quickly and gasped for desperate breath as the shadowy amoeba released him.

They tapped the staff again, and the shadows changed from a rounded, amorphous blob to thin, sharp spikes. With a quick wave, the spikes ran through Yugi's hands and cut the ties neatly. The white plastic fell into the dark void and seemed to disappear entirely.

Yugi swallowed with some difficulty and flexed his now-freed wrists. That… could have been his neck. "And after I solve the puzzle?" he dared.

Their smile widened. "You are free to leave, of course."

The expression on their face told him it unfortunately wouldn't be that simple, but what choice did Yugi have? He nodded again.

"Excellent," they said, then paused to inspect him. "It is strange. I thought that the Vessel would be more… impressive. Nevertheless, your weakness is to my benefit."

Yugi flinched at the assessment as the shadows retreated into the carving fork, lapping up his choker in its wake. Cutting remark made, the person headed for the door. "I will return to see your progress," they said, "but you needn't worry, Mutou Yugi, you will be looked after in the meantime."

Yugi did hunker over at this last use of his name, but somehow managed to keep the sour bile from escaping. He choked back the last of it and watched as his captor pushed open the door with his staff effortlessly and left.

Yugi hobbled to the door as soon as it shut and rammed against it again, but it remained as firmly shut as before. A sore shoulder was his only reward. There was no knob, nothing — so how could that person have unlocked the door from the inside? He patted frantic hands all over the smooth surface, but found no clue.

He sighed. At least he was free of his captors' presence, even if only temporarily. So. A person who thought they were an ancient god had kidnapped him for the express purpose of freeing a "god-king" from a puzzle. Yugi had been hurt before by myriad people for myriad reasons (he still couldn't bring himself to eat okonomiyaki, over ten years later), and he told himself that this was just another to add to the list, if a bit extreme compared to previous incidents.

The shadow magic was new though. Maybe… there was merit to his kidnapper's claims. Yugi shivered and tabled that thought. He returned to the middle of the room and stared at the golden box sitting menacingly in front of him. Was there really somebody trapped inside? There was only one way to find out.

He unceremoniously grabbed and immediately dropped it. The thing was heavy! Yugi frowned at it, as if it had attacked him personally. "You really should come with a warning label." he scolded.

Not even an hour into captivity and he was talking to a  _ box _ . Yugi laughed, a little ruefully, and lifted it again to upend its contents onto the floor.

The lid dropped with a heavy thud, and then came a loud hailstorm of heavy golden pieces as they descended too. Some rattled around on the upside-down lid; some bounced and skittered away to disparate areas of the room. Yugi shook the box again for good measure before setting it to the side and surveying the spread.

There didn't appear to be any obvious signs of something or someone kept inside: no sounds, no strange shadows like before. One piece in particular caught his eye: a flat, notched square that held the same eye as the box. It seemed to bore right into Yugi's face, just as the rod-wielding person's gaze had.

While Egyptology had always been Grandpa's provenance and not Yugi's, living with him for over twenty years had left its mark. It was recognizably the Eye of Horus, meant to give protection and ward off evil. Except in this instance — and here Yugi made a face — the puzzle had apparently led to his capture by a megalomaniac with freaky powers. "Some protection  _ you _ are," he huffed.

He picked it up and ran his thumb around the edges, avoiding touching the eye. It appeared perfectly cast; solid all the way through without hammer marks to indicate it had been beaten into shape. And it was strangely… warm? Yugi shook his head and put it down again. He had just been holding it overlong… the stress from encountering whatever had come out of the person's carving-fork staff was starting to warp his perception of time. He turned his attention to the rest of the scattered array.

The pieces were by no means uniform in shape; many featured raised edges that indicated the assembled form would not lay flat. Unlike his grandfather's recollections and the museum exhibits, however, the pieces were all remarkably intact, practically sparkling in the sun coming through the skylight. None bore any scuff marks or dirt that might have given testament to the age of the puzzle and its containing box. It was odd, especially considering that person claimed he had waited three millennia for its completion.

In other words, it probably wasn't authentic. The realization was an ice bath of relief. This whole — thing, it all stemmed from the delusions of that last person. Yugi huffed a laugh at the thought of his captor, with all their feats of shadow, getting swindled in a Dendera tourist trap. "Maybe you have a Made in China sticker somewhere, 'god-king'?" he teased, now assured in his security.

He bent to assembling, but his brain was making the task difficult. Every time he glanced away from a piece, its shape seemed to slip in his mind, and he would forget it even existed. Yugi doubled down to focus, but nothing was sticking. Did he have a concussion? He hoped not.

Pieces ran through his fingers as he sifted them in search of a single match to pair with the one in his hand. He rotated each one carefully, sliding and twisting edges to try and fit them together. But none seemed to match, and his discard pile grew larger and larger until not a single one remained untried. Yugi stared at it in consternation before shaking his head and starting from the beginning. He must have missed something on his first pass — unless his captor had somehow purchased an unsolvable puzzle?

After what felt like a short eternity of trying and failing to fit edges together, Yugi let the few in his hand slip to the floor. He looked around the room. Maybe he could take a break and do some exploring in the meantime, since it was becoming obvious that solving it would not be a quick task.

He got to his feet and ambled around the room. But the beige carpet yielded no secrets when trod upon; none of the walls fell to reveal passageways when hit. The ceiling with its large skylight was at least four meters high; even if Yugi somehow managed to turn the bed onto one side and clamber up, he'd still need to jump two meters  _ and  _ find a way to break the glass. There  _ was  _ a small air vent near the top, but only just wide enough for him to wriggle an arm into. 

Perhaps he could break the skylight and escape through the roof somehow. Yugi wrapped his arms around the potted plant and attempted to lift it for projectile usage, but it barely budged and only left him red-faced and out of breath. He tried the floor lamp and chair next but found them both securely adhered to the carpet. A quick turn about the room revealed no further items.

Anxiety gnawed into his limbs. So what if the puzzle was inauthentic and his captor had delusions of god-kings? It was all moot if he couldn't escape. "Focus," he told himself, only a little unsteadily.

He wandered into the adjoining washroom, separated by a small cutout in the wall. Thankfully, this room was tiled instead of carpeted. There was a tiny sink against one wall, with a toothbrush still in its packaging and a small tube of toothpaste perched on the lip. Two low spigots were attached to the wall perpendicular, with a wooden footstool, plastic bucket, and rag draped over its side. A beat-up roll of single-ply toilet paper balanced precariously on the raised lip of the ceramic squatting pan across the room.

Yugi eyed the sink and gingerly turned on the faucet. The water that came out was clear at the very least, but he was not quite desperate enough to drink it. He splashed some on his face anyways and scrubbed at his forehead. To his great relief, inky tendrils washed down with the water, mercifully un-glowing. He poked every corner again, but still no secrets unveiled themselves. 

Sighing, he made his way back to the main room and plunked himself down in front of the box. "Even if you're not real, please work with me," he said, "because the scary person told me it was either solve you or…"

...or get squeezed to death by the shadow tentacles, apparently. Yugi groaned and restarted his fiddling.

His short walk around his new confines had clarified nothing — each piece was just as mentally slippery as before. Yugi had never met a puzzle he didn't like, but this one was inching closer to faint tolerance. "I am going to solve you," he told it sternly.

Once again, he tried what felt like every possible permutation and then some. It was as if the pieces themselves were changing shape! Finally, in frustration, he managed to jam together two that at first glance had no grooves in common. "Ha!" he crowed, squinting at his work in the dark.

Wait, in the dark? Yugi jerked his head up and saw the bright sky above had unexpectedly morphed into a dark blanket of night, speckled generously with stars.

How had time passed so quickly? It was bright out not seconds ago…

He shook his head. Just the stress getting to him — it was time for a break, he thought, and as if on cue, his eyelids drooped under a sudden weight. He placed the pieces he had fitted together down and resolved to continue after a short rest. He fumbled his way to the bed and kicked off his shoes before climbing under the thin blanket. His eyes slid shut the moment his head hit the pillow, and he slipped into threatening dreams filled with harsh whispers and low murmurs.


	3. Chapter 3

Yugi woke with a slow groan, aching like he had been beaten everywhere with a bat. His bed had miraculously become even more uncomfortable than before — should have just listened to Anzu and gotten a new one years ago. He laid still and waited for a generous deity to relieve him of the pain, but eventually conceded he was likely late for work and rolled himself towards the edge. 

…and yelped as he fell right off, smacking into the ground with a muffled thump. "Augh!"

Yugi got to his elbows and scrubbed at his face. Either his bed had gotten narrower in addition to the lumps it had grown, or… his eyes finally focused and took in the surroundings.

Oh.

Instead of his cozy apartment in one of Domino's numerous high-rises, he was in the room he had been thrown into post-kidnap. Yugi swallowed and wobbled to his feet. Maybe if he wished hard enough, he would be transported back to his own reality?

He stood there silently, praying increasingly desperately before catching sight of the puzzle pieces scattered around the chair in the center of the room. "Right," he sighed, and meandered over.

God, his pants felt uncomfortable. Yugi threw a longing look at the washroom before refocusing on the mess.

Each piece shone a buttery, untarnished gold in the hazy sunlight. He toed lazily at the spread. He thought he had managed to make some headway — he distinctly remembered fitting two together, but he had evidently hallucinated the whole event. Nothing was assembled at all. "Am I losing my touch?" he wondered aloud. 

Grandpa would have a field day teasing him. That is, if he ever saw Grandpa again. 

The stickiness of his skin reminded him of his original objective. He waddled to the washroom, brushed his teeth, stripped out of his stained clothing, and sat on the stool to clean himself. Luckily, one of the spigots did produce hot water — an experience so divine Yugi almost thanked his captors out loud.

He reluctantly clambered back into his clothes and headed back into the main room, where the puzzle awaited him.

"Once I solve you, I'm going to file a complaint with your manufacturer." Yugi promised. "Source of issue: resembles freaky ancient artifact  _ too _ closely; causes kidnap of innocent Domino man." He sat down stiffly.

He frowned as he caught sight of the piece engraved with the eye of Horus. "Hey, didn't you… have four sides yesterday?"

He held it aloft, squinting. Yugi could've sworn it was a square, notched shape, but looking at it directly proved it was unmistakably triangular. He twirled it between his fingers, but nothing seemed out of the ordinary.

Was the puzzle magically changing shape? Or had his kidnapper snuck into his room overnight and replaced the pieces? Yugi shuddered. Frankly, the last person did seem creepy enough to pull a move like that, but he put the piece down nervously just in case. "Nice puzzle," he muttered, and gingerly patted the eye.

When no observable change occurred, he heaved another sigh and settled down to get to work.

* * *

The sound of the door opening jolted Yugi from his haze. He dropped the two pieces he had managed to link together and shot up, scuttling into the washroom and cramming himself flush against the sink. With any luck, he wouldn't be visible from the door.

Given his previous encounters with his team of kidnappers, he was not looking forward to facing whoever had just entered.

Steps, then the sound of someone clearing their throat. "Food's here."

It was the voice of the second kidnapper, the one with the handkerchief.

"No allergies, right?" the man continued. "Like you're not gonna drop dead if you eat chickpeas or anything?"

Yugi pressed himself closer to the wall. His heartbeat was starting to drown out everything else; the noise filled his ears so completely he wondered if the kidnapper could hear it as well.

"I've got water too. And unless you wanna be shitting yourself all night, would not recommend the tap."

More steps, closer. "Damn, you've already started solving it?" A low whistle, then the dull clank of something being set down. "Not bad."

Yugi clamped his hands over his mouth to quiet his breathing, growing heavier by the second. He saw wisps of white hair out of the corner of his eyes, near the center of the room. If the man walked forward any further, his hiding spot would be immediately uncovered. He regretted his hasty flight then. If only he had taken the box with him! Instead the only weapon he had in reach was…

He groped around the sink for the toothbrush — better than nothing. His fingers met the plastic handle, but he nearly burst into tears as the trembling of his hand sent it clattering loudly into the basin as it ricocheted around. Each bounce off the ceramic seemed to hang in the air, a bright neon sign that screamed "come and get me, I'm in the bathroom!"

The strands of hair angled closer to him, but the man made no sound. Yugi's knees nearly buckled. A second passed, then two, then ten. Any moment now, the man would draw close and he would have to fight. He bent loosely at the knees, preparing himself, and almost quelled the quiver of his limbs.

To his relief and confusion, the hair disappeared from his field of vision and the steps retreated despite Yugi's loud giveaway. A longer stretch of silence, then: "I know you don't have any reason to listen to me, but. Just. Careful when you're working on that thing, will you?"

Yugi heard the door open and was half-tempted to make a break for it.

"I'll be back to give you dinner," the man concluded, and the door shut.

Yugi waited in a tense stillness for any sign of a false departure, but eventually peeked around the corner. Upon noting that the room truly was empty, he crept over to the chair that now held a metal tray laden with food and a large cup of water as promised.

It might be poisoned, he thought. His stomach gurgled loudly in reply.

Yugi glared at his own body, betrayed, but brushed the pieces away from the chair's base to kneel and eat. If they really wanted the puzzle finished, he reasoned, they wouldn't also try to off him at the same time. "Itadakimasu, I guess," he said, and reached for a wedge of bread.

It wasn't the worst meal he had ever had — nothing would compare to Honda's foraged-mushroom surprises, especially after one had nearly sent Jounouchi to the hospital. Yugi dipped another section of the puffy flatbread in some sort of salty yellowish cheese. The one with the magic staff  _ had _ promised he would be looked after, but… Yugi sampled another of the tray's spreads. Hummus, Yugi decided, and a particularly garlicky one at that.

No matter how good the food was though, he would've eaten a thousand mushroom surprises if it meant he could be back home.

"You can't detect poison or anything like that, can you?" he asked the pieces on the floor. "No, that's silver… seriously, you're not doing me much good here." Yugi popped another wedge into his mouth and reached down to fiddle with the puzzle again while he ate.

The instant his fingers brushed a piece, he was met with a sharp jolt of electricity that left an unpleasant tingling racing down his hand. "Ow!" Yugi yelped, instantly retracting his hand and cradling it with the other. He stared accusingly at the puzzle.

Was it  _ sentient? _ The person who claimed to be a god did say that there was a king sealed inside, but Yugi was pretty sure the puzzle was not the genuine article. And yet, on the off-chance it was... Yugi reviewed all the things he had said about it aloud: fake, probably sold in a tourist trap. He blanched and said, "Um, I'm sorry, Mister… uh, King Puzzle. I'm just frustrated. I… I shouldn't have taken it out on you."

Feeling foolish as it failed to react in any discernible fashion, Yugi placed a tentative hand on the nearest piece. His shoulders relaxed when he was not greeted with another pulse of static. "Okay," he muttered, "okay."

Maybe he had imagined it. But given all that he had encountered, he was not yet ready to shelve the feral attack puzzle theory. This was fine. Totally fine. Yugi giggled, a little hysterically. No problem.

He finished his meal and re-devoted himself to the solving, this time handling each piece with a wary touch. "Why are you so difficult anyways?" he asked. "If you let me solve you, you can be whole again. Doesn't that sound nice? I mean, if I were a puzzle, I would want to be put together." 

Yugi traced an idle finger across the carpet, noting the rough brush of the fibres. "I think we can work together," he said encouragingly. "I mean… we're both stuck here, and I know I could really use a friend right now."

His eyes roved over the scattered array. "Won't you talk to me? Any way you can. Not shocks though, please!" he tacked on hastily.

There, by a leg of the chair — the shape he was looking for. He connected it to his block of two with a sharp click. A great lassitude swamped his limbs and his eyes began to close. "That post-lunch slump… really got me…" Yugi yawned and placed the chunk down. He laid his cheek on the edge of the seat. "Just a quick nap… then let's talk more…"

* * *

"Hey!"

Yugi groaned. Who was shouting in his ear?

"Hey, wake up!" 

He was so comfortable…

"Seriously, get up!"

Yugi cracked one eye open, then jumped as he met another pair of wide, heavily-lined eyes right next to his own. "Augh!"

"Shit," the man muttered, and backed up.

Heart calming, Yugi registered the voice as his second captor again, who had apparently returned with another tray. He swallowed nervously. "Ah… hello?"

The man stared down at him. Yugi craned his neck up from his position on the floor to meet his gaze, and winced as his joints creaked in complaint. The man was tall! 

The man cleared his throat and said, incredulously, "You this polite to everyone who grabs you off the street?"

"I can be rude if you like," Yugi said tartly, and immediately clammed up. How could he be so stupid? This was one of his kidnappers!

Instead of unleashing a wave of magic, the man just laughed and reached for the emptied tray. He did a double-take upon seeing its contents. "What, you actually liked the  _ meš?" _

_ "Meš?" _ Yugi parroted, slightly off-kilter.

"The… you know. Mish. The salty cheese thing."

"Oh! Oh yeah, it was good." Yugi despaired of himself — of all the things to say —

They stared at each other blankly.

"Uh. Malik, by the way," the kidnapper — Malik — pointed at himself.

"Marik?"

"Ma _ -leek." _

"Malik?"

"Yeah."

More staring. Yugi almost wished for the cartoonish menace of the first kidnapper, instead of this strangely polite exchange. To break the awkward tension, Yugi almost offered his own name — then remembered the sick feeling from the last time he had done that, and stayed silent instead. He watched Malik swap the trays, the new one now containing a fragrant, yellow soup, two hardboiled eggs, and more bread.

"Will I always be fed so often?"

Malik shot him a confused look. "Er… you know it's dinnertime, right?"

Yugi glanced at the skylight skeptically. Yet to his surprise, the outside sky was indeed dyed in the colors of sunset, a deep purple-orange streaked across the few clouds visible. "Wha…"

"Yeah, you were seriously out — thought you had kicked it."

How had so much time passed? Yugi wasn't particularly prone to napping, so for him to have lost an entire day… a cold shiver ran through his chest. "Did you. Uh. Drug me?"

"Did I what?"

Yugi flushed. "Never mind!"

"No, I heard you," Malik grunted, and ran a bronze hand through his wild mane. "No, I didn't drug you. And I didn't do anything to the food, either!"

"Oh." Given how quickly Yugi had passed out, he privately had his doubts.

Malik fiddled with the plastic cup on the tray. "Do you… remember what I said, last time?"

"Uh…"

"It was like six hours ago!" Malik groaned. "I told you to be careful, right?!"

Alarmed at Malik's sudden frustration, Yugi opted to just nod.

"So fucking  _ be careful! _ "

Yugi continued to nod. Be careful of what, exactly?

Malik eyed him suspiciously, as if he had correctly gleaned Yugi's confusion. "I mean. Try not to kill yourself solving that thing," he said ominously, "and take breaks. A lot of 'em. You got that?" 

"Um. Yes." Did they want the thing solved or not, Yugi wondered, frustrated.

Malik held eye contact, but evidently found what he desired. "Good." With that, he began to shuffle towards the door.

"Er." Yugi cleared his throat nervously. "Thanks for the meal?"

Malik stopped and let out another sharp bark of laughter. "I'll leave you alone for the night," he said. "Be back tomorrow morning for breakfast."

He kicked the door open with the heel of his leather boots (why was everyone else able to open that thing?) and exited. A rush of air entered the room in his wake, carrying the smell of… the ocean? Yugi inhaled deeply. At the very least, that narrowed his set of possible locations to every coastline in the world, he thought wryly.

He turned his attention to his dinner. In-between bites of the lentil stew, he chattered to the puzzle, hoping to provoke a reaction. "He seems awfully cautious around you, huh? What did you ever do to him? Did you shock him too?" Yugi imagined all of Malik's hair standing on end and coughed on his spoonful. "Oh, that would be unfortunate."

He began to peel the egg, making a game of how much shell he could remove in one go. "What I don't understand is why Malik seemed so… normal? Compared to the others?" He munched on the white. "He didn't try to threaten me, or use any weird magic… that was kind of him, I think!"

Yugi finished the egg and started on the other. "You know, I would like it if you were that nice to me!" he teased.

...and then felt silly. It was a  _ puzzle. _ Yes, one that apparently had the ability to zap, but still very much an object. "Don't tell anyone I said that," he muttered, flushing a dull red.

Mercifully, the puzzle had no visible reaction, but Yugi still felt the desire to be far, far away from it. He wolfed down the last of his meal and stood. "Good night, I guess," he said, and darted to the washroom to get ready for bed.

* * *

The strong aroma of spiced fava beans roused Yugi from his slumber. He sat upright groggily and wiped away the remnants of drool with one slightly-crusty sleeve. From the change in light and the smell, Malik had undoubtedly already came and gone. Yugi wondered if he ought to feel more shame at the fact that Malik had probably seen him drooling everywhere, then banished the thought. Malik had also, he sternly reminded himself, tackled him to the ground not three days earlier. If anyone was to feel shame in this situation, it certainly wasn't going to be him.

Yugi swung his feet off the bed and hopped out, heading directly for the steaming tray on the chair in the center. The puzzle pieces were right where he had left them, thankfully, all scattered around the…

...wait. Yugi stared at the pieces and sunk to the floor as his knees gave out underneath him. Overnight, the pieces had somehow miraculously assembled themselves into a textbook-perfect kanji character, spelling out "STOP" on the floor in orderly lines.

"Oh god," Yugi squeaked.

He quickly scanned the arrangement. The pieces were yet again all broken, entirely undoing his meagre progress from the day prior. His eyes landed on the piece with the eye, standing out sharply with its black ink. And as if it were mocking him, it undeniably, irrefutably, had four sides this morning.

"Oh GOD," Yugi said again.

He scrambled back to the bed and dove under the thin comforter. Could the puzzle see him still? How could it even see in the first place, without eyes? Or maybe, Yugi shuddered, it saw through that same engraved piece with the eye of Horus, the one that had been  _ staring right at him. _

Yugi thought briefly about throwing himself onto his kidnappers' mercy. Begging for them to keep him far away from the puzzle; that he would do anything as long as he didn't have to be in the same room as it when he slept, defenseless. Given all Malik's cryptic warnings, he might allow it, but the man with the scepter? Yugi cringed further. No, any clemency from that quarter was doubtful.

The air in the tiny space grew muggier and muggier, turning into a thick soup in his lungs. Beads of condensation plumped on his face and mingled with the cold sweat dotting his temples as he fought for each breath. Maybe it was all a dream — maybe he had just imagined it —

Yugi cautiously lifted one side of his blanket shelter and immediately re-enclosed himself. Nope, the character was still there.

What was he going to  _ do? _ There was no way he was touching that thing again, not when — not when it could clearly move by itself!

He curled into a tighter ball, tucking his knees to his chest. What he would give for somebody by his side! Even at his lowest, he had always had someone there to draw strength from, but now he was alone, a sensation so crushing it weighed on him more than the blanket did. If Jounouchi were here, he would offer to beat the puzzle up for him. If Anzu were here, she would roll her eyes and nudge the dang thing apart, and sit by him as he solved it. If Honda were here, he would let Yugi hide and he would investigate it himself. If Grandpa were here, he would say…

"'Yugi,'" he said to himself, mimicking his Grandpa's comforting, scratchy tone, "'you should have more faith in yourself.'" 

He smiled weakly at that and rubbed away the tears. "Have more faith," he repeated. Maybe he could do that.

Slothlike, he hiked one corner of the comforter up and poked his head out, moving centimeter by centimeter, keeping his eyes trained on the menacingly-still puzzle. His joints clicked audibly as his limbs emerged from underneath. His palms hit the floor first as he slid off the bed; then his knees.

Everything in him yearned to retreat under the blanket and hide. "Faith," he muttered again, and got to his feet to stride over to his foe. He loomed over it as best he could, placing his hands on his hips. "I'll have you know I was called the King of Games in high school! I'm going to solve you," he promised sternly, "and you can't stop me."

The tempting aroma of breakfast was nothing compared to his desire to spite the puzzle. He sat down; reached for the nearest piece. "Let's do this."

The trouble was just as it was before. Each piece slipped fluidly in and out of his brain, vanishing like a flickering mirage in the summer air. Yugi had chalked it up to exhaustion before, but now he suspected otherwise. "I won't let you!" he said.

Each time a piece started to fade from his mind, Yugi latched onto the memory of its existence with a ferocity that surprised even himself. Gradually, the pieces seemed to settle, remaining static in his head and hand. Every so often, Yugi tossed a suspicious glance onto the piece with the Eye of Horus. "If you change shape, I  _ will _ know," he said in a tone he reserved for only the most recalcitrant of code.

Slowly, slowly, the chunk in his hand grew from two pieces to three, from four to five. His neck bowed; his hand felt like it was moving through sludge as he quested for adjacent pieces. "I am  _ not _ falling asleep this time." He defiantly jammed another piece on with a resounding click. 

The world narrowed to just him and the puzzle. Everything started to ache from the soles of his feet to the base of his neck. A stabbing sensation throbbed behind his eyes like a caffeine withdrawal headache of the highest order. His chest iced over and the tips of his fingers tingled with cold. Was it trying to give him frostbite? He was freezing, all of a sudden… maybe if he wrapped himself up with the blanket…

He turned his weary head in search of the comforter, noting that another two food trays had somehow appeared by his side, and paused. A long, black shadow stretched across the bed, bisecting it neatly in half. It seemed to ripple in the fading light, churning and seething as if it were alive.

As if on cue, the partially-assembled chunk turned to ice in his hand, searing in its intensity. Yugi let it fall out of his stiff hands.

Between one blink and the next, two heavily-lined purple eyes appeared at the far end of the shadow, cut out of the darkness like the very puzzle pieces Yugi had assembled. They glowed like chips of fire, trained accusingly at Yugi's face. Yugi would've screamed if he had any sensation left in his mouth.

A deep rumbling echoed throughout the room, and a shining golden seam opened between the puzzle-piece eyes to reveal another wadjet. Frustration and a touch of fear crowded into Yugi's heart, but somehow, he knew it was not his own.  _ Enough, _ a rich voice commanded in Yugi's head.  _ You must cease. _

_ Why? _ Yugi protested silently.

_ Cease, _ the voice said again, louder.  _ I vowed to protect the seal. I will not allow you to make me a liar. _

Just as abruptly as it had appeared, the shadow vanished and the assembled chunk of the puzzle splintered. The individual pieces morphed as they hit the floor, one side morphing into two; a notch pulling from concave to convex. Yugi stared in disbelief. There went all that progress.

One man who told him to solve the puzzle or die; the thing sealed in the puzzle itself telling him to stop. What was he supposed to do now?


	4. Chapter 4

Yugi woke to the sensation of a hard rock indenting itself into his skin. "Ow," he grumbled, and rolled over. 

The sensation duplicated.

Disgruntled, he swept numerous pieces out from underneath his side. He had apparently passed out right where he sat after the eerie shadow-creature had told him off last night. Yugi tried to look at the bright side. At least he knew it could talk.

So. Damned if he did, damned if he didn't. "There has to be another way," Yugi murmured. 

There were no rules here, no game book to follow. No sense in trapping himself in a false solve/do not solve dichotomy right at the starting line. But what were his options? Neither shadow nor man with magic staff seemed amenable to any sort of discussion, but if it came down to it… "I'd take my chances with you," he told the puzzle quietly. 

It hadn't tried to hurt him directly, as opposed to his team of abductors. Scare the living daylights out of him, yes — but nothing further. He lolled on the ground, mulling over his options. Maybe if he laid there long enough, his problems would magically solve themselves.

Instead of any divine revelation, after some time the door opened to the repetitive smell of brine and fava beans. "Hey, breakfast — holy shit!"

Yugi heard Malik jog over, and he promptly appeared hovering over Yugi, holding a tray aloft and eyes wide open. "Oh thank gods," he said, seeing Yugi breathing. He scowled abruptly, "Did you listen to me at all?!" 

"Hnngrh," Yugi muttered intelligibly in reply. While breakfast was a welcome addition, it was not quite the sign he had hoped for.

"I'll take that as a no," Malik said, rolling his eyes. He reached over Yugi and picked up an untouched tray of congealed cheeses and bread, swapping it with a fresh, steaming one.

Yugi sat up groggily to watch Malik bustle around the chair and inspect the food with a critical eye. If he recalled correctly, right before he had lost consciousness, there had been three trays surrounding him. Which meant… "...did you keep bringing me meals, last night?" he asked cautiously.

Malik grunted and looked away. "You were seriously freaky," he said. "Didn't even respond when I called your name — fuckin' weird." His hands were visibly quivering, just the faintest bit.

Yugi smiled, heart warming as Malik doggedly kept his eyes averted. "That's very kind of you," he said, giggling as Malik hunched his shoulders. "Thank you."

Malik muttered something under his breath.

"What was that?"

"I said shut up already," Malik shot back, but without any heat.

Yugi smiled wider, then let it shrank as his thoughts returned to his ordeal from the night prior. But what was that looming shadow? If his captors were to be believed, a king, but Yugi had never heard of a king like that. He chanced a look around, but thankfully it had not shaped itself into any more menacing messages. Malik had told him to be careful; did he know its true form?

The desire to know almost outweighed his wariness. Yugi moved to stand, then frowned as his clothes released an unpleasant odor at the motion. Malik seemed friendly for someone who had abducted him; maybe he wouldn't find a request too daring. "Uh… Malik?"

"What?"

"D-do you happen to have any clothes I could wear?"

Malik looked at him incredulously.

"It's just that I'm still in…" Yugi gestured at his body, but what he really meant was  _ the clothes you kidnapped me in. _

Malik took all one-hundred and fifty-three centimeters of him. "Yeah, your crappy outfit."

Yugi bristled. That was rough to hear, coming from a man wearing a sleeveless cropped hoodie! "My shirt was very nice before the coffee spill," he said defensively.

Malik raised one eyebrow.

"It was!"

"Yeah, okay." Malik said dismissively, then paused contemplatively. "Sure."

"Sure?"

"Sure, I got stuff. I'll take you to it. But first —" He pointed at the tray imperiously with his free hand. "You gotta eat. You're never gonna get any taller if you don't fuel your body."

"I'm  _ twenty-eight! _ " Yugi cried, too wrapped up in the casual bickering to catch himself.

"Whatever," Malik said, grinning.

Yugi grumbled but squirmed closer to the chair and ate as instructed, making pointed eye contact with every spoon that went into his mouth. Malik watched him gleefully, oh-so-helpfully pointing out bits of onion he purposefully left behind. Yugi's hands trembled; Malik said he would take him to a new set of clothes… did that mean he was going to leave the room? Yugi could hardly wait for a reprieve from the puzzle, and perhaps a chance to make a break for it. 

When the bowl was clean and absent of everything, even the onions, Malik finally deemed it acceptable to go. Yugi jammed on his socks, wrinkling his nose at the stink, and then his dress shoes. He hobbled after Malik. His heart pounded as he followed Malik out, but seized up when Malik stopped right as he cracked the door open.

"Look, uh."

Yugi swallowed. "Yeah?"

Malik was just as awkward about it, pursing his lips as if the words came oddly. "Don't, like. Don't try to run, okay?"

Yugi nodded, but Malik wasn't satisfied. "I mean it. Seriously. I know your listening is shit, but  _ don't do it. _ You've met… the boss, right? You know what he can do."

Yugi swallowed. Even without further specification, he knew as to whom Malik referred. He was in no hurry to encounter the shadows again, and something about Malik's face was very genuine. "Okay."

"You swear?"

"I promise."

With one last meaningful look, Malik turned back and pushed the door all the way open. They stepped into balmy air ringing with the laughter of plump gulls wheeling through the sky and the overwhelming crash of water against rock. Yugi cast his gaze around wildly, but saw neither discernible landmark nor distinctive edifice to orient himself — there were only the frothy waves, the foggy hills in the distance, and olive-green shrubs crawling their way down the sea-cliffs. 

Even were he to make a break for it, there was nowhere obvious to run. How long could he make it on foot in the open before they hunted him down?

"Hey, c'mon." Malik's voice broke him out of his reverie. "This way."

Yugi reluctantly tore away from his frenzied survey and continued shuffling behind, kicking up clouds of sand and dirt in his wake. Tiny dappled lizards dotted along the brush eyed him warily and skittered away as he grew close, their yellow stripes flashing in the high sun.

They followed the rough dirt path for fifteen, twenty minutes before a small structure with a slanted roof came into view. "In here," Malik said as they reached its metal door. He nudged it open with one boot and waved at Yugi with his free hand. "Get in."

Yugi crept in slowly, sensing Malik's eyes trained on the back of his head. The moment he passed through the entryway, the door slammed shut with a loud  _ thud. _ He whipped around, betrayed despite all that he knew about the man — which was to say, nothing. "Really?" he complained aloud.

"You that surprised?" A mocking voice behind him said.

Yugi whirled back, eyes adjusting to the dimmed light. There, seated at a round table, were two people in the middle of some card game: a tall, copper-skinned woman wearing a linen headscarf adorned with a golden scarab pin, and a young man with skin as pale as his fluffy white hair. Yugi squinted at the latter. He could've sworn he had seen his face somewhere before…

Memories of finding creepy Youtube videos to scare Jounouchi with floated through his head. "You're dark_necrofear!" he blurted, pointing at the man.

The pale man rolled his eyes and threw his hand onto the table. "I see he really is the Vessel," he snickered, "just as much of a dimwit as that idiot king."

"Bakura, please." the woman scolded. She turned to him, her face a mask of careful neutrality. "Welcome, Mr. Mutou."

Yugi jumped. "How do you know my name?"

"Uuuugh," the man — Bakura — groaned, apparently  _ not  _ the famous ghost-summoning Youtuber despite looking  _ exactly like him. _ He took up his cards again and drummed his fingers against the wooden surface. "Will you hurry up and go?"

The woman shot him an icy look before glancing at her hand. "Any threes?"

"No."

"Bakura."

He bared his teeth in a savage rictus. "Choke on it," he snarled, and tossed out the three of hearts from his hand.

"Thank you," she said serenely, before turning her attention back to a baffled Yugi. "I knew you would come, but I could never tell when… it is a great relief to meet you at last."

She  _ knew  _ he would come?

"Fives?" Bakura snapped.

"Go fish."

She ignored the ensuing howl and continued speaking, louder to rise above the din. "My name is Doctor Isis Ishtar, of Egypt's Ministry of Antiquities. The man to my right is Bakura."

"That's  _ Thief King _ Bakura to you, witch."

The woman raised her eyebrows and coolly laid down a set of sixes. "I believe you meant  _ Doctor _ witch."

Yugi couldn't figure out whom or what to focus on. "Um, it's… nice to meet both of you?" He collected himself into some semblance of a bow.

"Oh, so polite!" Bakura cooed, fanning himself with his cards. "Please, do bow and scrape some more." His tone was only gently mocking, but Yugi caught the piercing loathing in his eyes and recoiled. Had they met before?

"Bakura," Isis said. A pleading note entered her voice. 

He stared at her with an unreadable expression. They seemed to exchange some unspoken words, but Isis was the first to avert her gaze. "So! What brings you here to our little corner of the world?" Bakura asked, triumphantly leaning back in his chair. 

"I, ah. Was kidnapped?" Yugi offered tentatively, watching Bakura all the while. Were they part of the same team as his kidnappers?

Bakura threw his head back and cackled, a hyena-like ringing that sounded oddly practiced. "Hear that, Isis? Your beloved brother is quite the man of action!"

Isis sighed and Yugi eyed her with some trepidation. It must be Malik Bakura referred to; Yugi was hard-pressed to imagine any sort of relation between her and the pale foreigner, or the tall person with the carving fork. Noting Yugi's expression, she finally laid down her cards as well. "Yes, Malik is my younger brother." she confirmed. "But like you, both Bakura and I are here not of our own volition."

"She means her baby brother threw us both in here without a care," Bakura added. "Little Zorc-lover that he is." 

Even though Malik was indeed part of the force that had abducted him, he did not seem the type of person to turn on family. And who was Zorc? Perhaps there were extenuating circumstances. Still wary of the unfamiliar duo, Yugi just nodded. 

Isis looked pained at the description, but soldiered on. "I'm sure you have questions. Please, ask away."

He opened his mouth, then shut it again dumbly. Questions he had aplenty, but where to even start…

"The resemblance truly is uncanny," Bakura drawled. "Looks just like the King did when I dangled his father's corpse in front of him. Ah, good memories!"

Yugi found his voice. "You think I look like a king?"

Bakura threw his hands in the air and cards rained everywhere. He grinned maniacally. "But of course! Have you clay for ears?"

The words of his last kidnapper echoed in his mind.  _ Welcome, o vessel of the king. _ "The same one that one guy, uh…" Yugi mimicked the vague shape of the forked staff with his cupped hands. "The one they were talking about?"

Thankfully, Isis seemed to catch on. "Ah, you refer to Zorc."

"Who?"

"The man with the  _ was-scepter, _ " she clarified. "A bronze rod with a forked end and a snake head, yes?"

So, a man. Yugi nodded again.

"Zorc is an avatar of chaos and destruction, sealed away by the Nameless King three thousand years ago," Isis explained.

"The thing in the puzzle?"

Isis frowned as Bakura howled with fresh laughter. "The  _ thing? _ An excellent description!"

"Mr. Mutou, please," Isis chided, and something in Yugi instantly shriveled up. How Bakura withstood her disapproving tone he had no idea. "The King made a great sacrifice for the sake of the world — "

Bakura interjected. "For the sake of  _ his _ world, you mean. All those pretty priests and their obedient followers, as long as they didn't look up from the crumbs the great King so nobly allotted them."

She pursed her lips but continued without objection. " — he is still a god-king, more than the  _ shut _ you may have encountered."

The  _ shut, _ Yugi hazily recalled from Grandpa's impromptu lectures, the shadow-self. So Zorc wasn't delusional, there was somebody trapped in there! "I'm sorry," he apologized. "I didn't mean to offend."

"Oh, it's no — "

"Accepted," Isis smiled, neatly cutting Bakura off. "But forgive me, I meander: three thousand years ago, the Nameless King sealed Zorc — then referred to as Apep — away with the power of seven Millennium items, each entrusted to his closest priests, and peace returned to the land. And yet Zorc has sought a means of escape ever since. Over the millennia, he has released his chains on six of the seven, and as for the last — "

"He's got you," Bakura completed, smirking. "A perfect little  _ khet _ and  _ ib  _ to house the Pharaoh."

Body and heart? That didn't sound good. "What do you mean?"

"The King used every facet of the self to ensure the seal's success," Isis said. "Only by piecing his entirety together can the seal open and Zorc be released. In the Millennium Pendant — now Puzzle — he left his  _ shut _ as part of the lock. In grief, his successor crafted a bespelled protection for the broken fragments that opened to anyone suitable to revive the King."

The golden box, Yugi thought, and the hieroglyphs on it must be the spell. Aloud, he said, "Revive him? How would I do that?"

"Think of it like this," Bakura leaned forward, delight written across his features. "Everyone's got six parts:  _ khet, ib, ka, ba, shut, ren. _ Right? But sometimes… you get two people that have pieces that are eh, close enough."

Yugi was unfortunately starting to see where this was going. "Like me and this pharaoh."

"Like you and the King!" Bakura cried in a mock-congratulatory voice. "Give the boy a cookie, something finally dawns!"

Isis looked sympathetic, which only made the reality of the situation so much worse. "The term 'pharaoh' was not used in his time, but yes. Under his own orders, the King's — Pharaoh's —  _ khet _ and  _ ib  _ were destroyed. Zorc searched across time and space to find someone to house a god-king without shattering, and he found you."

Bakura laughed. "Now all he needs to do is just pop out the pieces of you he doesn't need, and there you go! A perfect husk to house his royal asswipe. He crawls back to life, seal is broken, and Zorc's back."

"But that's not how people  _ work, _ " Yugi protested. "I mean, your personality is part of your brain! Things like  _ ka _ and  _ ba _ — they don't exist!"

"Sure, if that's what you think. Doesn't really matter to me." Bakura grinned. "Just remember what I said when you get dragged to the underworld, yeah?"

Yugi shuddered, but one thing niggled at him. "Well, how's he going to, uh, 'pop out' my pieces anyways? What if I don't want him to?"

"Oh, that's the easy part." Bakura's grin widened. "See, you're already doing it for him. That protection that dragon-fucker left? Strips the solver of all those parts the King won't need."

Yugi's innards turned to ice. "What?" he croaked.

"I'm afraid Bakura tells the truth," Isis confirmed grimly. "Another High Priest in Pharaoh Set's court cast a similar spell on the Millennium Ring. In fact, you noted it yourself when you entered. You recognized him as the man… dark_necrofear, was it? Perhaps that was who inhabited the body prior, but no longer — only Bakura is left."

Bakura cackled again, louder.

So his destiny was to turn into a meat suit for some ancient pharaoh to wear? "I think I'm going to vomit," Yugi said weakly, and proceeded to do exactly that.

When Malik finally returned, he entered to Yugi on his hands and knees, quivering near his puddle of bile, Isis frantically hovering by his shoulder. Zorc's initial amusement made sense now. No matter what he did — solve the puzzle or refuse to progress further — he was going to die. He retched again.

"Hey!"

Malik's shouts and Isis's murmurs came to him as if underwater, muffled in his ears. What was the point of even hanging on — perhaps it would be best to get it over with — 

"Oi!"

The warm hand on his shoulder re-tethered him. "Hey. You hear what I said?"

Yugi shook his head.

"I said, we gotta go," Malik said gently, and tugged Yugi to his feet. "C'mon now."

"You're mopping that up!" Bakura called from somewhere unseen in the room.

"Go, brother," Isis urged. She turned her focus to Yugi. "Do not be afraid," she urged.

She and Malik exchanged glances, and Isis subtly tucked her chin down towards her scarab pin. Malik hastily rearranged his face into a scowl. "Know your place," he said, and tugged Yugi out into the afternoon heat.

Malik towed Yugi along behind him, guiding him with a steady hand. Yugi stared into space, taking in nothing. Even as the path took them under the direct warmth of the sun, none of its rays could melt his heart.

He was once again shepherded into his original confinement, the door closing behind the two of them with a heavy slam. "Hey…" Malik said tentatively.

Yugi just stared blankly at the puzzle still strewn about the room.

"Got you some new clothes," Malik said, walking over to the bed. "Here, t-shirt, pants, underclothes." He paused expectantly, then continued when there was no response. "I eyeballed it, but it should fit okay."

Silence.

"I, ah. Anything else you need?"

"No," Yugi whispered.

"Sorry?"

"No," Yugi said. "Please… I'd like to be alone."

Malik scuffed at the carpet and nodded jerkily. "Yeah, uh. Sure thing." He backed away. "I'll be back with your dinner."

Yugi waited, still. Eventually, Malik bowed out and Yugi was once again left alone. He trudged to the bed and ran his hands over the clean clothes Malik had left, inhaling the powdery scent of detergent. He stripped out of his stained clothing, kicked it into piles near the foot of the bed, and donned the fresh set with a quiet sigh of relief.

Even facing directly away from it, the puzzle weighed on him. Could the Nameless Pharaoh see him from where he lay? Yugi shuddered and crawled under the covers, compacting himself into a ball as securely as he could. He only trembled at first, but tears slowly began to drip from his eyes, down his nose, and onto the pillow.

"What am I supposed to do?" Yugi sniffled. "Somebody, please…"


	5. Chapter 5

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> CW: See end notes for details.

Yugi laid in his blanket cocoon fitfully. At times, he scoffed at the dual threats presented. Let Zorc come; let the puzzle's pharaoh possess him. What did it matter if he died a quick death at the hands of a god, or a slow one at the mercy of a spell? And at others, the thought of simply winking out of existence into an eternal sleep sent his pulse skyrocketing and he would drown in the sea of his own mind.

There had always been someone, back in Domino City. In the earliest days, it had been Grandpa: there to place a warm hand on his head, tow him into the kitchen for a quick round of cards and a glass of juice. Then later, Anzu, Honda, and Jounouchi, each lighting a new constellation in his world. But now… he cut a quick glance over to the puzzle pieces, still scattered around the floor.

The Pharaoh was still there, even in his broken state. In some dreams, Yugi would open his eyes to a long shadow cast upon the wall, the golden Eye of Horus staring accusingly at him. He would scream, but the shadow swallowed everything up into the void — sound, smell, sight.

That was usually when he woke up, thankfully. At any rate, he and the Pharaoh had not spoken since. 

Malik, on the other hand, left him well alone at first, only tip-toeing in to swap mostly-untouched meal trays. But as hours morphed into days, his urgings came more and more frequently.

"Hey, you should eat."

"You gonna get up?"

"Yo, it ain't gonna solve itself."

Yugi had jammed the pillow over his head at that last comment.

On the fifth day, Malik finally came over to the bed and turned on the standing lamp. The light battered at Yugi's eyes; he squinted in protest. "Listen… I know it's shitty, but you gotta keep going."

Yugi didn't want a pep talk from one of the people who put him here in the first place. He scooted all the way to the wall and ducked his head under the covers pointedly.

Malik shifted audibly behind him. "The boss is gonna want progress," he said uneasily, "and he's gonna check."

Yugi laid still. So what if he would?

A sigh and then a faint creaking of joints. "At least eat a little more. Keep up your strength."

Yugi heard Malik shuffle about the room, presumably adjusting the tray to whatever specification he had in mind. The sink ran briefly, then the sound of pouring water came from across the room. "This plant has seen better days," Malik muttered out loud.

Yugi thought the plant would probably outlive him, at the very least.

Malik hesitated at the entryway, despite Yugi's silent prayers otherwise. He cleared his throat several times, seemingly searching for something to say. Instead, the door creaked open and shut, and he was gone.

Yugi poked his head out from the blanket and sniffed. More fava beans, from the smell. What he wouldn't give for white rice. Maybe he could leave Grandpa a message somehow beyond the grave, to bring offerings of convenience-store rice balls? He giggled, short and sharp.

He thought about getting up. He hadn't showered since he had left the room, and he knew he was starting to smell like it. He could hand-wash his old set of clothes; the ones Malik brought had lost their crisp lines and had picked up his own body-scent, replacing the freshly-laundered detergent. It would be a relief perhaps, to wear clothes he had chosen himself.

He reached up and turned off the light instead.

* * *

After the daylight melted into soothing night, the door opened once yet again. Yugi barely stirred; now well-accustomed to Malik's comings and goings. More fava beans, no doubt.

Only this time, it wasn't Malik.

"Sleeping already, princess?"

Yugi stiffened and held still. He hadn't encountered his first kidnapper since the actual abduction, and the memory of it came back in buffeting gusts. The stink of stale cigarettes wafted near his nose; he held back a reactionary sneeze.

"What, you don't like  _ ful? _ Can't blame you, I guess." The man gave a rough chuckle. "Think it tastes like shit myself…"

Yugi heard the scrape of a metal tray against the chair. Please go away, he prayed.

It seemed he would get his wish granted when all the sounds abruptly came to a stop. "Hey… you haven't done much, have you?" the man asked.

Yugi was briefly confused. Oh, he meant the puzzle. He almost shrugged. And what of it?

Without warning, the blanket was torn off. Yugi turned, startled, and then shrieked as a meaty hand grabbed him by the wrists and held him aloft, dangling in the air.

"The boss told you, right?" the man shouted. "Either you solve it… or you die!"

"Let go!"

Yugi fruitlessly wriggled his wrists, but all that did was make it feel like they were going to pop off the rest of his arms. He pried at his captor's hand with his fingers, trying to get even a single digit off for relief. His legs thrashed as they sought purchase on something, anything. Panic blossomed in his chest as he realized he had no way to free himself.

"You hear me?" The man gave him a forceful shake, and Yugi's back hit the floor lamp, sending a dull ache radiating throughout his body. 

Yugi was going to pass out! He worked at his jaw to speak, but found nothing but pained gasps. Instead, he nodded as best he could as dark bursts dotted his vision.

For a small eternity, the man made no movement to set him down. Then finally, he eased his grip and Yugi crashed to the floor, hacking as one of his arms hit the bedframe on the way down. He tucked it against his side and gingerly laid his wrists in his lap. Pain radiated from where he had fallen on the side of his hip, pulsing in an agonizing drumbeat. 

The man stepped closer. "Get to it."

Yugi looked up hesitantly. He didn't mean…?

The man slammed his leg against Yugi's side, sending him rolling. "Solve it, I said!"

The world spun in a kaleidoscopic frenzy. Yugi tried to rise but only swayed and crashed. Which way was up and which was down? His arm throbbed with a deep ache; his wrists had caught fire. He heard the man walk closer and panicked. He struggled to his hands and knees, thankfully spotted the gleam of gold in the dark, and crawled towards it, gritting his teeth against the agony that licked up his arms. The air rattled in his lungs with every breath. His hands shook as they closed around the gold chunks, quivering so badly they fell through his fingers and back onto the floor.

"Hurry up!" A heavy boot fell on his back and Yugi let out a pained cry. The force of his own voice ripped through his windpipe, tender and raw.

The man made no further moves, mercifully, and Yugi blindly grasped at the nearest piece. He squinted in the darkness for others, but his vision blurred in and out of focus. Unable to tell much beyond their location, he reached for whatever was he could and prayed for a miracle.

Unbelievably, it was as if the puzzle  _ wanted  _ to be put together this time — no mental slipping, no shape-changing.  _ Click. _ Yugi shakily jammed pieces together as fast as he could, hearing and smelling the heavy ash-stained breath of his captor right above him.  _ Click click. _ Insert and turn.  _ Click click click. _ "Thank you," Yugi whispered to the Pharaoh, tears splashing off the gold. " _ Thank you." _

An assembled chunk soon emerged in his palms, larger than he had ever managed. The man laughed. "Aw, see? You can do it if you just try!"

On the last word, he kicked Yugi's side one last time and sent him crashing onto the floor again. A rush of bile came to his mouth; he swallowed it down and blinked furiously to combat the kaleidoscopic blurriness of his vision. The puzzle bounced out of his hands and shone on the floor centimeters away. 

Yugi coughed, the familiar coldness and fatigue overtaking him that always accompanied any work on the puzzle. His side rubbed uncomfortably against some of the scattered pieces and his arms pulsed in agonizing bursts, but he was alive. He concentrated on drawing slow breaths, one after the other.

He was so  _ stupid, _ to think that it didn't matter what Zorc did, Yugi thought miserably. Even if solving the puzzle meant he would die, if he could just eke out a few more weeks of life — a few more days, even — 

Above him, the man nudged at the finished chunk with his toe. "The boss will be real happy. Good work!" he leered.

Yugi watched through bleary eyes as the man cackled, pleased at his own joke. He trudged around the room, idly kicking pieces here and there, sending them ricocheting off Yugi's prone form. It hurt, of course, but all he could do was lie there and take it. With each step, Yugi was keenly aware of how close the man walked to his fingers, curling them closed in some last-ditch attempt at protection. 

"God, look at you," he sneered. "Snivelling like a little girl!"

On the last word, he sent his leg forward, as if to kick Yugi again. Yugi flinched and flopped a leaden arm over his head.

"Aw, you scared?"

No impact came. Yugi grit his teeth, a fresh wave of tears tracking down his face.

"Don't worry, that's enough for tonight. I'll only come back if you need some more convincing!" He laughed again, clogging Yugi's senses with his riotous joy.

At last, the man began to meander back to the door as he whistled some jaunty tune. His steps thundered upon the carpet and vibrated through Yugi's prone body.

The door opened and slammed shut. Yugi was suddenly, blissfully, alone again in the room. 

Well, alone for a certain value of the word. As if on cue, a dark shadow emerged from the partially-assembled puzzle. Yugi closed his eyes. Here came the Pharaoh.

In contrast to the thunder and fury of last time, there was no forewarning as an icy tingling wrapped around his hands. Yugi's eyes shot open and he watched, horrified, as coils of shadow engulfed him. "Please," he croaked, lifting them up. He couldn't take any more! But the shadows followed.

_ Be still. _

"No!" Yugi tried to shift away, but more shadow accumulated at his knees and locked him in place.

_ You are hurt. _

Yugi gave a short sob in response.

The Pharaoh's voice gentled.  _ Let me aid you. _ A thin wisp rose to his face, and a chill blossomed in his chest. Yugi watched it out of the corner of his eyes, terrified, but all it did was pat at his cheek and wipe away the tear tracks. His head spun, stuffed with the emotions of the other — shock/sorrow/ANGER — 

_ It is abominable that he should treat even his own in such a manner, _ the voice seethed.

Yugi took a second to parse the formal speech, then realized exactly what the Pharaoh was implying. "I'm not  _ his," _ he protested, too indignant to be shocked at how the Pharaoh spoke directly into his mind.

Skepticism colored the Pharaoh's answer.  _ And yet you carry the serpent's magic? _

"What — what magic?"

_ That which is ringed upon your throat. _ A tendril prodded at the base of his neck.

"Ow," Yugi said reflexively, then frowned. "Oh!"

Instead of any sharp puncture, there was nothing other than a cold tingle. He reached through the ring of shadows and patted his neck inquisitively, then froze. Lifting his wrists had brought him no pain.

"How did you…"

_ I healed you, as I said, _ the Pharaoh said, almost… smug? A pause, then he continued, tentative.  _ If you did not wish for it, then perhaps I could remove it? _

Yugi nodded enthusiastically. He didn't know what Zorc had cast, but whatever it was, he wanted it gone.

_ Then, allow me. _ The cooling intensified and the long shadow rippled, sending more coils at his throat. The golden wadjet on its brow glowed with a sharp intensity and faded. The tendrils receded and retreated into the main shape.

Yugi took a deep breath, turning his wrists this way and that. The pain was completely gone, not just from his wrists, but from his entire body. No sharp tugging at his sides from where the man had kicked him, no aching hip. The Pharaoh healed him! He was okay! So why did his heart continue to race? Why did he still feel so… 

_ You are frightened, still, _ the Pharaoh observed, and Yugi let the dam burst.  _ No, no, _ he heard the Pharaoh say helplessly, but Yugi couldn't stop. His ragged cries echoed around the room, ringing in his own ears. If that man had kept going — if he couldn't put those pieces together — 

_ It's alright, _ the Pharaoh said, dissolving into casual speech as he grew audibly distressed.  _ Hey, you're okay! _ New wisps of shadow came to frantically scrub at Yugi's face, whisking away the snot and tears.

Yugi's sharp breaths stumbled over themselves in their rush to leave his lungs. Each one tripped into another fresh jag, renewing almost endlessly. He jammed his palms against his eyes to block out the now-hateful scenery. How could he endure this room, beset by men who could hurt him as they pleased? He wanted to go home, to Grandpa, to Jounouchi, to Honda. Anywhere was better than here!

The Pharaoh let Yugi cry himself out, waiting until the sharp wails had melted into tiny hiccups. All around him, the shadows writhed as if the Pharaoh were wringing his hands.  _ All better? _ he asked softly.

No. Yugi nodded jerkily, and turned to face the shadow. "Thanks," he said quietly.

Now that he looked closer, he noted that the shadow's face had grown in clarity since he had last seen it. In addition to its eyes, it now had a nose and mouth, all cut through with jigsaw edges, as if someone had taken a portion of a photograph puzzle and pasted it into the shadow's head. In fact, the face looked very similar to…

"...my face," Yugi breathed. "You have my face."

The Pharaoh looked inquisitive.  _ I do? _

"Wh— just look at yourself!" Yugi smiled shakily in spite of himself.

His face reflected in the shadow scowled.  _ And how do you propose I do that? _

Yugi looked around and caught sight of the latest metal tray. "H-here, let me show you." He removed a bowl and utensils, setting it carefully onto the carpet, and then held it flush against his chest, angled towards the Pharaoh. "See?"

_ See what? _

"See—" Yugi craned his head around to point out what he meant. But there was no glowing eye in the reflection, only the slender fingers of his own hand. "Er."

_ Well? _

"Okay, so you don't have a reflection." Yugi conceded to the Pharaoh's — his own — dubious face. "W-which… is concerning. But I'm saying that if you did, you'd see that we look identical."

The Pharaoh seemed pensive.  _ Strange. _

Yugi set the tray down. "Yeah." He muffled another hiccup.

_ I apologize for my misconception, _ the Pharaoh said, after a pause.  _ And had I the power, I would have interceded earlier. _ Another wave of righteous anger, not his own, rose in Yugi's heart.

"It's okay."

_ It is not. _

"Well, I'm the one who had the life — kicked out of him," Yugi said, stumbling at the description. "And I say it's okay. So there."

The Pharaoh disapproved, if the rebellion Yugi sensed was any indication.  _ You forgive easily. _

"Were you a vengeful pharaoh then?"

_ Pharaoh? _

It was Yugi's turn to pause, startled. "Oh… king, I guess."

Luckily, whatever connected their minds seemed to also link word meaning.  _ I was a pharaoh? _ The shadow frowned.  _ I do not remember —  _

"You don't remember?"

_Only fragments._ _The scent of cedar. The taste of beer._ Wistfulness then, both in his voice and Yugi's mind. _The more the puzzle is assembled, the clearer the images._ He caught himself and tacked on hastily, _Which you shouldn't be doing!_

Yugi cracked a smile at the second loss of formality. The Pharaoh's determination to remain distantly grand was oddly endearing, warming Yugi in the face of all that he had endured. "Yeah?"

_ This is no laughing matter, _ the Pharaoh scolded, back to his careful veneer.

"I know, I know. Dr. Ishtar told me about you: the Nameless Pharaoh who sealed Zorc away with the Millennium items."

_ Who is this "Dr. Ishtar," to know so much of me when I myself do not? _

"She's, uh…" Yugi flailed. "She works in Egypt's government. She…" 

_ You have no idea who she truly is, do you. _

"But she's not wrong, is she?"

The shadow puffed up, much like Yugi did when his friends correctly identified him as the mafioso during games of Mafia.  _ Irrelevant, _ he snapped.  _ All you must know is this: solve the puzzle no further. I take no pleasure in threatening the innocent, but I will act if forced. _ The shadow abruptly shrank pencil-thin, then vanished. The solved portion accordingly splintered.

Energy rushed through Yugi's veins. "Hey!" he said indignantly. "You can't just leave because I was right!" He scrambled closer to the puzzle. "Get back out here!"

He prodded the pieces within reach. "I know you can hear me! I still have so many questions left — come back!"

The room's sudden silence was deafening. He fumbled at the pieces to force the Pharaoh out once more, but the mental slipperiness that accompanied his efforts told him the Pharaoh was not in the mood.

Yugi scowled and turned his attention to the forest-green stew left behind. Fine. He paused at the reminder of his first kidnapper, but shook his head and ate anyways, flinching only briefly at the viscous texture. Surely it would be Malik again tomorrow, he tried to convince himself.

He ate slowly at first, nausea churning in his gut, but then accelerated. More tears splashed down his face and into the soup — Yugi lapped it all up. He had been so pathetic, just cowering there! He pushed down the small voice that reminded him that there was little he could do, trapped as he was. He should've done something, anything.

As the edge of his spoon scraped the bottom of the clean bowl, his thoughts turned. The Pharaoh had been… kinder, than he had expected. Even when he thought Yugi was on Zorc's side (and Yugi made a face at that) he had healed him and felt anger on his behalf. Not the vengeful ruler Yugi had asked about, but a Pharaoh that extended a hand even to his enemies.

Soup now gurgling uncomfortably in his stomach, he rose to brush his teeth and clean himself, taking a brief detour to turn on the light and pick up his old clothes. Yugi mourned his shirt as he scrubbed at it, realizing the stain was now more or less permanently part of the fabric — but draped it over the pail to dry anyways.

After his rubdown, Yugi sat on the stool motionlessly, just breathing in the steam. He inspected his pristine wrists, then tapped at his eyes. If only he had a mirror… he decided perhaps the current state of affairs was for the better. His eyes were undoubtedly bright red, and he didn't know if he could handle that sight with any equanimity.

He could find no indication that he had been hanging from his wrists not hours before. He twisted to check his sides as well; they too were unblemished. Somehow, the lack of any physical evidence unnerved him, almost as much as if there had been bruises left behind. 

He tried to think about it no further. He redressed himself, marched back into the main room, and took a deep breath to pump himself up. "Just so you know, we  _ are  _ stuck in here together," Yugi said. "I'll get you to talk to me!"

The puzzle gleamed menacingly. 

Game on, then.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> CW: detailed physical violence. The first kidnapper arrives to deliver Yugi's meal instead of Malik, and physically assaults Yugi to force him to make progress on the puzzle. To skip, please stop reading after the first horizontal break and jump to the paragraph here.


	6. Chapter 6

In the stretch following his second encounter with the Pharaoh, Yugi found himself losing to a puzzle for the first time in his life. One housing an ancient ruler, capable of changing the puzzle's shape and undoing pieces at his whim, to be sure. But he was losing all the same.

While Yugi found it entertaining at first, he was growing frustrated at the lack of progress, a sensation amplified by the Pharaoh's own frustration he felt tucked in his own heart. Frustrated, and afraid — while he hadn't seen the man since that night and it had only been a silent Malik ever since, he thought often of his return. What would he do if he came back and saw Yugi had been stymied ever since? The memory of dangling in the air, helpless, returned to him in frequent flashes: when he brushed his teeth, while he laid in bed. It flickered in and out as if to remind him that ultimately he had no control.

_ I will permit none to harm you _ , he heard in his dreams.  _ So CEASE. _

"But you'll need to be partially assembled to do that," Yugi argued back during the day. "So let me solve you!" It was an argument the Pharaoh typically won by splintering each time Yugi got more than three pieces to stick together.

It all came to a head when Malik entered one morning with a breakfast and a fresh set of clothes to find Yugi yelling at the puzzle, which had yet again broken insolently in his hands after hours of effort. "Oh, come ON!"

Malik paused at the entryway. "This a bad time?"

Yugi let the pieces fall through his hands, startled at the address after days of silence. "Ah, no?"

"What?"

"Uh. This is a good time?"

"I can't understand a word you're saying," Malik said, annoyed.

"Huh." Yugi cleared his throat. Maybe he was mumbling? "I said, nothing's wrong."

Malik stared, then rolled his eyes. "Okay, well. If you ever want to make sense again, let me know," he said huffily, setting down his load with a petulant thump.

"I'm not  _ trying  _ to be difficult," Yugi protested. Then it all clicked.

The Pharaoh said that he had detected Zorc's magic on his throat, presumably cast after Yugi had first arrived. What had Zorc said then?  _ Now that I have corrected your tongue _ … had that been a translation spell of some sort?

Yugi saw Malik was prepared to leave. "Wait," he said, getting to his feet.

Malik caught his approach and scowled. He threw his hand out and Yugi watched, horrified, as it flew near him — 

He nearly overturned the tray in his haste to scramble away, panting. As soon as he got outside Malik's range of motion, his vision refocused and he saw, relieved, that Malik had just been trying to flip him off. Well. That was fine. His breathing settled.

Malik lowered his hand, lost. "I… hey. I didn't mean to hurt you…"

Yugi nodded hesitantly. He knew that, didn't he? Then why did his heart seem fit to leap out of his chest? 

Malik swallowed and gave Yugi another searching look, but seemed unable to find what he desired. He left with a dissatisfied grunt, his haunted expression lingering in Yugi's mind.

That night, he dreamed he had found his choker again from where Zorc's shadow had eaten it, lying innocuously on the carpet. He picked it up from the floor and tilted it this way and that, marveling at the way the pristine center buckle shone. The leather was unmarred from its trip to the void; the inside still had his name written on it in silver marker. His gut screamed at him to stop, but nothing was visibly off. Dream-Yugi smiled uneasily. Maybe all was well?

Then the choker came to life and buckled itself around his wrists. Snug at first, but it tightened and tightened and tightened and Yugi hurt, he  _ hurt _ and he screamed but nobody was  _ there _ somebody  _ help _ — 

_ You must wake! _

Yugi shot up in bed with a gasp, massaging his wrists. "It's not real," he said to comfort himself, "it was only a dream…"

But it felt real. He cast his gaze around but found no change to the room; he relaxed his shoulders, grimacing at the sweat-stickiness of the covers.

It was still deep in the night; sunrise had not yet sprawled across the sky and the frothy splash of stars covered the entire view out of the skylight. Domino City felt a world away then, separated in some infinite distance. There were never any stars to see back home, all clouded by the bright streetlights. Though Yugi had thought of it in the beginning, he had since lost track of how much time had passed since his abduction. Kaiba had wanted the release before the new year… surely it hadn't been a month; perhaps there was still time to make it back.

Yugi snorted. Who was he kidding; he was probably fired a hundred times over for disappearing unannounced. He could only imagine Kaiba's reaction if he told him he had been kidnapped through no fault of his own. Kaiba, famously, had himself been held captive by unscrupulous business rivals in his youth: a captivity that lasted three days and during which he had invented the SolidVision technology that had propelled his company to the cutting-edge of holographic technology. If he were really a good employee, he would at least have the decency to invent the next-generation gaming console during his absence. "Kidnapped, and with nothing to show for it?" he imitated.

_ To whom are you speaking? _

Yugi jumped. "P-pharaoh?"

_ I suppose. _

To his surprise, he spotted the chunk he had worked on that day (or was it yesterday?) lying on the floor. "You didn't separate?"

The now-familiar shadow seeped out, stretching across the wall opposite. The Pharaoh's borrowed, jigsawed face seemed strangely weary, more creased lines than Yugi had ever seen on his own body.  _ I did not. _

"Oh." Yugi paused. He didn't want to offend… "Thank you."

_ You are the most stubborn creature I have ever had the misfortune to encounter _ , the Pharaoh admonished, though his tone bordered on fondness. 

"Does that mean you'll let me keep going?"

_ And the most optimistic _ .

"That's a yes, I think."

Coils of shadow began to writhe in and out of the base of the main shadow-shape.  _ Are you aware I do this for your sake? With each piece you place, your  _ ka  _ fades. _

"I know. Dr. Ishtar told me, remember?"

_ Ah yes, your "Dr. Ishtar." _ Projected on the wall, the Pharaoh's borrowed face conveyed his deep skepticism.

Yugi giggled. "Maybe if you met her, you'd see." A thought struck him. "It must be why you look like me — the spell is using my  _ ka." _

_ Spell? _

Yugi turned on the light and scrambled out of bed, flinching only minutely at the sudden chill. "The spell on the box. Here, let me show you." He picked it up and flipped it so the hieroglyphs were right-side up. "Can you read this?"

More flickering and the wadjet opened, adding another source of light in the inky dark.  _ Yes, _ the Pharaoh snapped, then went quiet.

"Well?"

_ One moment! _

Yugi shuffled back and forth on his bare feet. "Can I get back in bed if it takes much longer? I'm kinda cold."

_ Go then, _ the Pharaoh huffed, a strange expression on his/their face. Yugi peered closely as he tucked himself back in. Was that what a smirk looked like on him? He wasn't sure if he liked it.

_ You have moved too far; I cannot see, _ the Pharaoh complained after a beat.

"Oh,  _ now  _ you mention it," Yugi muttered, flinging the covers off once more to go fetch the assembled portion of the puzzle.

A sharp jolt ran through his fingers the moment his fingers touched the gold; Yugi snatched his hand back and cradled his abused fingers. "Ow! What was that for?"

_ I haven't any idea what you mean, _ the Pharaoh sniffed.

Yugi rolled his eyes, but scooped it up all the same and hurried back to the warm spot he had cultivated. Against all laws of physics, the shadow peeled off the wall and came to rest on the one adjacent. "Better?"

_ Much _ .

"So?"

The Pharaoh frowned.  _ It details the exchanging of  _ ka _. How the Vessel shall receive the blessings of the Pharaoh and provide his  _ ka _ sustenance in the next world by offering their own. _

Yugi shrugged and dropped the box aside. It was as Dr. Ishtar had said, but in this case, being right did not bring much relief. "See?" 

_ You seem wholly unconcerned. _

"I am not!" Yugi protested. "You think I like this? There's no way I — " want to die, he finished silently. His breath quickened unpleasantly.

A beat. Then,  _ I apologize _ , the Pharaoh said stiffly.  _ I did not mean to imply so. _

Yugi released the bedsheets clutched under his fist. "That's okay," he said, and was pleasantly surprised to find he meant it too.

_ But you must go no further. Not only do you harm yourself, you damage the seal,  _ the Pharaoh pled.  _ I may not remember fully, but I know I vowed I would do all it took to chain the serpent. _

"Zorc?"

_ Is that what he calls himself these days? Yes, him. _

"I don't want him to be unchained either, whatever that entails," Yugi said. "But you saw, right? He wants me to solve it and I…" Yugi could feel the ghost of that man's grip, squeezing around his wrists like a steel band.

Yugi startled as a translucent tendril curled over his hands. He stared, fascinated, as it caressed his palms before withdrawing. He turned and peered closely at the Pharaoh's face. Was he blushing?  _ I will protect you, _ the Pharaoh said, but the shadow thinned to a single line when Yugi tried to get closer, concealing the borrowed face.

It was a touching sentiment, but the crux of the matter remained. "Could you beat Zorc, you think?" Yugi asked quietly. "If he came in here, I mean. Do you think you'd be able to stand up to him?"

The single line of the shadow flickered open again and the Pharaoh's uncertainty squirmed into Yugi's heart.  _ I… do not know. _

"Then what are we supposed to do?"

A beat.  _ I don't know _ , the Pharaoh repeated, heavily.

* * *

"I spy, with my little eye… something green."

"The poor plant in the corner, which you have undoubtedly murdered already."

Yugi sighed. What was it with everyone and the plant? "Yes, it was the plant. Your turn."

It had been five days, during which the Pharaoh had permitted him to add exactly one piece to the assembled mass to allow him to speak out loud. Unsurprisingly, even his voice was an exact replica of Yugi's — a phenomenon that Yugi pointed triumphantly towards whenever the Pharaoh displayed skepticism towards Yugi's claims. It was very different than the full register he had used in Yugi's head, but it was still nice to feel that he wasn't just talking to himself.

Perhaps the Pharaoh had sensed his loneliness, or perhaps he himself did not wish to return to his formerly-scattered state. But no matter what the reason was, it took very little coaxing on Yugi's part to convince the Pharaoh to keep just this small chunk together, and to talk to him. And as Yugi had suspected, the Pharaoh was not the menacing, all-powerful figure he had painted himself to be. On the contrary, as he was slowly discovering, the Pharaoh was fond of games, wordplay, and at times, just plain being a little shit.

"I spy something yellow."

"My bangs."

"No."

" _ Your _ bangs."

"Also no."

Yugi sat up from the floor. There were limited games they could play while stuck in a single room without any additional supplies, and the Pharaoh had seemed uninterested in trying to imagine the standard fifty-two card deck — so 'I spy' it was. "Well, what else could you be referring to?"

The Pharaoh was obnoxiously smug. "I can provide a hint if you so desperately need it."

Yugi pointed an accusing finger at the shadow. "You cannot sound like that with my voice; it's just wrong."

The Pharaoh just smirked, a feline pleasure upon his lips. It was another expression that sat strangely with Yugi, but the Pharaoh made it his own in a way he envied. "Well?"

"I'm getting up," Yugi grunted, and made a lap around the room. "Yellow… yellow…"

"Pick me up," the Pharaoh commanded, "I want to see how close you get."

"Oh, well if your majesty insists," Yugi said, and on his next circle scooped the solved fragment into his hand, dragging the attached shadow with it. Then, the Pharaoh's words registered. "Wait, how close I get?" He headed to the washroom.

Judging from the Pharaoh's scowl, he hadn't meant to provide that hint. Yugi hid a smile and surveyed the tiny space. Something yellow? He checked the sink — no blond strands there. The spigots were an unblemished chrome; the plastic pail a solid blue.

"Do you need further assistance?"

"No way," Yugi shot back.

What was the Pharaoh seeing that he wasn't? The room had nothing else… wait. He gingerly made his way over to the squatting pan. Sure enough, the ceramic was tinged a faint urine-yellow near the drain.

"You are disgusting, do you know that?" Yugi said, and the Pharaoh dissolved into helpless laughter. "Come on! How old are you?"

The Pharaoh made an attempt at a reply, but quickly fell back into unrestrained giggles. His shadow roiled in ecstatic waves upon the washroom wall. Rather than cease, his joy built on itself, crescendoing until Yugi himself could not stand against it.

"Would serve you right if I flushed you down the drain," Yugi grumbled around his own giggles, and stomped back into the main room.

He dropped the puzzle onto the floor next to the box in which he had finally gathered all the unused pieces. He waited for the Pharaoh's laughter to die off. "So glad I could entertain you."

The Pharaoh wiped away one last imaginary tear. "Ah… you would have been among the foremost of jesters in my court," he teased.

"I almost miss the times where you pretended to be all big and scary," Yugi said. A thought struck him: "But seriously, how old are you really? Do you know?"

"If the serpent is to be believed, three thousand years old."

Yugi rolled his eyes. "Okay, yes,  _ technically. _ But I meant how old were you when…" he trailed off.

"When I sealed him away?" The Pharaoh shrugged, or as much as a shadow could shrug without shoulders. "In a sense. I remember speaking to the Overseer of the Secluded. He expressed, ah,  _ concern  _ that I had reached twenty-three years of age, and had yet to produce an heir. He offered to personally choose a woman from the harem."

" _ Twenty-three?!" _

"Yes, that is what I said." The Pharaoh's voice turned sly. "Or are you just as surprised as he?"

Yugi shook his head, trying to ignore the "harem" bit of the sentence. "No, I mean… you were so young."

"I don't believe the Overseer thought so, going by his reaction. But perhaps I lived for years after that."

Yugi privately doubted it. The way Dr. Ishtar had spoken of the Nameless King's sacrifice did not make it seem like it was the final act performed after a long reign; rather a last-ditch move by an equally-desperate king. "Regardless, I'm definitely mentally older than you," he sniffed, but broke his faux-haughtiness into a grin when the Pharaoh giggled. 

"And you are…?"

"Twenty-eight."

"A man of a great age indeed. You must have produced your own progeny by now then, unlike the young me," the Pharaoh joked.

"Things are pretty different now," Yugi said. How to summarize three thousand years of worldwide variance in human cultural attitudes? He fumbled for words, then settled on: "We don't really have, um, harems or anything. And anyways, people these days, they don't settle down so early all the time, if at all."

The Pharaoh shot him a quizzical look. "And are you one of those to never 'settle'?"

"Well, no," Yugi hedged. "I just… haven't found the right person yet."

"I'm sure you will find her someday."

"Them," Yugi corrected absent-mindedly, and hunched his shoulders. It could be a risky thing to say even now in his time; what would an ancient Pharaoh think of it?

The Pharaoh, to his credit, paused only for a moment. "You will find them, whoever they are, someday," he acknowledged with a smile. 

Though his features were Yugi's own, it touched him in ways he could not name. Yugi swallowed, oddly flustered. "Maybe. Anyways, have you thought about what I suggested earlier?"

"To ask your Dr. Ishtar for assistance? I have."

"And?"

The Pharaoh's shadow rippled, pensive. "I foresee difficulties. How do you plan to convince Malik to let you exit? And even should you manage that, how will you speak to them without Zorc's magic?"

Yugi hadn't thought about that. "Well, Malik kind of just took me out, last time? So I figure if I gesticulate enough, he'll get the general idea. And to talk to them…" he paused. "Oh, maybe you can help. Could you cast a translation spell or something?"

The Pharaoh shook his head. "I would, but I'm afraid the knowledge for such is beyond me. Or if it is not, I have not recovered it."

"Oh, well maybe then — "

"I am not letting you give away more of your  _ ka  _ just for a speech charm."

"Ugh. Fine." Yugi blew a particularly long strand of hair out of his face.

"Beyond that, the man you described, Bakura — he worries me."

"Why?"

The shadow wavered. "It's something just out of reach, like faint music. But there is an uneasiness there."

Yugi waited for more, but nothing came further. "I mean, he didn't seem so bad last time," he said. "Maybe a bit… rough? But nothing dangerous." The memory of Bakura's eyes ran through his head, those eyes filled with malice. Yugi shuddered. Or perhaps not?

Luckily, the Pharaoh seemed not to have noticed. "If you insist," he said dubiously. "But I cannot aid you in this matter, and I have my doubts."

"That's okay, I just want to make sure you're on board. Even if they don't have any ideas, it's still worth a try, right?"

"Perhaps," the Pharaoh said, then swiftly changed the subject. "Now then. I believe it is your turn?"

Yugi groaned but smiled despite himself. He cast his eyes around the room. "Ah, fine. I spy with my little eye…"


	7. Chapter 7

"You are too nervous," the Pharaoh complained.

Yugi stopped pacing to shoot the puzzle a dirty look. "Well, what if Malik doesn't understand what I'm saying?"

"Then we come up with a new idea."

Yugi was privately warmed by the word 'we'. "We had a while to think of anything else, and this was all we could come up with, you know."

He had been criss-crossing the room since dawn, too nervous to lie still. All he could think of was what to do if Malik didn't understand him — or worse, refused. Or what if the first abductor made his reappearance? Why had he thought this was a good idea again? Even as the night melted into sunrise, he continued wearing a steady track in the floor to the Pharaoh's mild annoyance.

"How about another game of 'I spy' to distract you?" he suggested on Yugi's thirty-seventh lap.

Yugi gave him a distinct glare. "The  _ last _ time we played, you spotted something brown."

"And?"

"I think we both know where you were going with that!"

The Pharaoh widened his eyes and drew his brows high into mocking arches. "I was simply pointing out the plant's stems. Are they not brown?"

"Yeah, sure. 'Twenty-three,'" Yugi muttered. "Twenty-three months, maybe."

"I can hear you."

Yugi batted his eyes. "Forgive me, your majesty — your humble servant was just musing out loud — ack!"

A golden puzzle piece hit him right in the chest and bounced off his foot. If Yugi had any doubts about its solid construction, those were all settled now. He rubbed the lingering ache and frowned at the Pharaoh. "What was that for?"

"Forgive me, humble servant, I lost my grip," the Pharaoh said gravely.

They stared at each other before dissolving into giggles. "Ahh, your face," the Pharaoh wheezed.

"God, you're such a…" Yugi trailed off as laughter clouded his voice.

He leaned against the wall, finally tiring of his endless walk. The view above was now a pale blue sky, replete with fluffy, indolent clouds. Yugi had never learned to tell time from nature like Honda had, but his stomach was telling him it was breakfast. "When do you think Malik will get here?" He hoped it was Malik.

"I just hope he brings more  _ ful. _ It smells very nice."

"You can smell?" Yugi asked, genuinely surprised, then frowned as realization hit him. "Wait, or are you just cherrypicking the memory from my head — "

The door opened and Yugi shut up, spinning to face the door. To his great relief, the boot that entered was clad in the supple leather that Malik favored, rather than the heavy rubber soles of the first man.

"Malik!" Yugi cried, unable to hold the flutters in.

The man in question stopped, carrying what indeed appeared to be fava beans. "Yeah?"

Now came the hard part. "Can you take me to see Dr. Ishtar and Bakura again?" he asked, emphasizing the names. 

Malik closed his eyes, seemingly pained. "You're sticking to whatever that is, huh?"

Yugi clenched his fists. No way was he going to give up! "Isis. Bakura."

"Yeah yeah, I got it." Malik waved a dismissive hand. "Just. Gimme a sec. Let me put these down."

Yugi made room for Malik to step into the room and swap the trays. He discreetly nudged the solved portion under the bed, ignoring the Pharaoh's indignant mental screech. Malik hefted the empty tray and pointed to the meal. "Food first."

Yugi sulked but obediently followed to poke at it, heartily tired of fava bean stew — not that he was going to complain to his captor about it.  _ Ungrateful, _ the Pharaoh hissed amusedly.

"You try eating this every day for two weeks," Yugi muttered under his breath.

"What was that?"

Yugi stuffed another spoonful into his mouth and acted as if he were engrossed in the meal, trying to look as innocent as possible.

Malik seemed deeply unimpressed. "Not sure why you wanna see those two again, but…" he shrugged. "You done?"

Yugi nodded as mushed the last bit around the insides of the bowl, thinning it out. He dashed to the bed to retrieve his shoes.

_ Take me with you! I want to meet them too. _

Yugi shook his head, minutely. Where was he going to hide the chunk of gold? It wasn't as if it laid flat.

_ You can figure it out. _ More alarmingly, Yugi noticed a small shadow begin to slip out from underneath the bed. Yugi looked over his shoulder. Good, Malik seemed to be paying attention elsewhere. As inconspicuously as he could, he kicked the puzzle even further, exhaling in relief when he heard it thump against the wall.

_ Oh, you will pay for this. _

Yugi discreetly stuck his tongue out and headed for the door, beaming at Malik.

"Let's go then."

The Pharaoh's seething was abruptly cut off as soon as they stepped outside and closed the door behind them. Yugi walked behind Malik quietly, rehearsing what he was going to do once he got there. How would he mime his  _ ka _ coming out of him anyways? Yugi frowned. Wasn't dark_necrofear from England? Even if it wasn't… him, anymore, perhaps the body still retained its original abilities; all the synaptic connections were left undisturbed. Yugi's English scores were abysmal and translators did all the heavy lifting when he spoke to the press, but maybe he could make something work.

He shuddered. Would that be what happened to him, too? Would the Pharaoh have all his memories too, wearing him like a skin? Considering the Pharaoh's regal manner of speech, the PR team back at Kaiba Corporation might even consider it an improvement.

They had been out only for a few minutes when Malik stopped, sending an absent-minded Yugi careening into his back. "Oof!"

The silky tone from ahead made his heart freeze over. "Out for a stroll with the Vessel, Malik?" There, standing not one meter away, was Zorc, wearing that black-gummed smile.

"Lord," Malik said respectfully, and bowed.

Zorc neared with was-scepter securely in hand. Even as Yugi longed to flee, it was as if his shoes had been cemented to the ground. "Why have you allowed him out?"

"I thought it might do him good to come to terms with his future," Malik said, flat. "The other two seem to have accepted their fate."

Zorc laughed and reached forward to tilt Yugi's chin up with the end of the  _ was. _ Yugi's neck ached at the wide angle, but he kept his eyes securely averted to the side. "I am not so sure, Malik," he hissed. "The drunkard seems to have done more in one night than you seem to have done in ten. See how the Vessel wavers? His  _ ka _ remains in only five-sixths."

Malik's demeanor remained unchanged. "Howard has his methods and I have mine."

Yugi swallowed, his Adam's apple bobbing uncomfortably against the two bronze prongs against his neck. A sixth of his  _ ka _ was gone? He didn't feel any different. Perhaps that would be what his death would be like, here one moment and then gone the next, completely unknowing. He breathed heavier, clenching his teeth. 

"I see. Vessel, what say you?"

The switch in attention restarted Yugi's heart, sending it pulsing into his throat. "W-what?"

Zorc gave a theatrical sigh. "I command you to speak, Mutou Yugi. How has the puzzle progressed?"

The moment Zorc said his name, Yugi's mouth opened. No! he shouted in his mind, but his will had been imprisoned within his flesh, unable to act. His guts churned, the words forced from his lips. "It's difficult. The Pharaoh doesn't want any more completed."

Zorc frowned. "Again, you speak nonsense." His gaze zeroed in on Yugi's throat. "Ah."

The scepter seemed turn to ice against his throat; Yugi half-expected brands of frostbite. "Again."

"The Pharaoh doesn't want it completed," Yugi repeated, against his will.

"So you are at an impasse?"

Yugi wanted to cry. Why couldn't he stop? "Yes. I wanted to ask Bakura and Dr. Ishtar if they had any ideas." 

Zorc was silent for one terrifying moment, then laughed with the same richness as the Pharaoh's voice but none of the warmth. "It seems you were correct, Malik! Well done."

"Thank you, my lord."

Zorc waved off Malik's gratitude, now fully focused on Yugi. "Look at me."

Yugi's gaze involuntarily snapped to Zorc's. Those slitted eyes appraised him without blinking, as if they were boring into Yugi's very core. His eyes narrowed critically. "Alas, even with knowledge of the god-king, you still have not a single fraction of his ability.

"I know him well: Horus' son, seal upon my  _ ka.  _ He has been a thorn in my side for millennia and for it I respect his power. Whereas you, Vessel, have none of that: neither strength nor courage."

Zorc had said that before, during their first meeting. It hadn't hurt as much then, when Yugi knew nothing of the Pharaoh. But now, knowing that he was compared against the playful, protective man trapped by the puzzle? Now, it did.

Mercifully, Yugi had no more time to dwell on ache as Zorc lifted the was-scepter away from Yugi's throat and let it rest by his side. Yugi dropped his head but dared not make any more moves, conscious of Zorc's attention. "Strange indeed," Zorc finished. "Be on your way, Malik."

Malik bowed again and latched onto Yugi's upper arm despite Yugi's flinch. The only sound came from the crunch of gravel beneath their feet as they traveled down the rest of the path in silence. Yugi was acutely aware of Zorc's unwavering attention on his back and kept his body facing straight forward, even as Malik's tight grip sent his steps zigzagging. He almost wanted to address the gulls that watched him curiously from their rock perches, as if to say, you see? This is what happens when you stay too late to work: abduction by ancient, evil god.

_ Neither strength nor courage. _ Zorc's words reverberated in his ears.  _ Neither strength nor courage. _ The more they echoed, the more Yugi found them to be true. What had he done since his capture save for cry and wait for someone to save him? It left a bitter taste on his tongue.

He was practically thrown in when they had reached the house at the end of the path; the door closed behind him with a definitive thud. He stumbled his way in on shaky legs and eventually slid to the floor. The dim light soothed his eyes; after spending so much time inside with the Pharaoh's shadow he had grown unaccustomed to the harsh rays of unfiltered sun. He massaged his throat gingerly. No damage seemed done, but he would ask the Pharaoh when he got back home to make sure.

Home. Yugi nearly laughed out loud. Is that what he thought of the room now? Home?

"You done shitting yourself, kid?"

The rough words could only belong to one person. "Not a kid. Hi Bakura."

The light dimmed further, and Yugi looked up to find the man looming over him, a wild grin on his lips. "Hey Vessel. Still alive?"

"I guess."

Bakura cackled, then stepped aside at Dr. Ishtar's plea: "Give him some space."

"What, in case he pukes again?"

Dr. Ishtar clicked her tongue, and then a calloused hand came to rest on Yugi's. "Mr. Mutou, are you all right?"

Yugi switched mid-nod to a silent shake of the head, trembling underneath her touch. He really did lack courage, just like Zorc had said.

"Ah, well." Dr. Ishtar's mouth pulled to one side in a wry smile. Somehow, Yugi felt comforted by the peaceful melancholy in her eyes. "Perhaps you'd like to tell us about it?"

A small shrug.

She stood from her crouch and pulled Yugi to his feet. "Join us for Go Fish at the very least. Bakura accuses me of cheating, and it would do him well to see he loses due to his own luck."

"Shut up, hag," Bakura hissed, but made no move to stop them.

They made their way to the table and she fetched an extra chair from some corner to seat Yugi. "Now then. Mr. Mutou, could I trouble you to deal?"

* * *

"Five sets! Count 'em and weep!"

Dr. Ishtar tapped her fingers on her pile, lips pursed. "Very well. Mr. Mutou?" Silently, Yugi revealed his spread.

"CHEATER!"

"Well done."

Yugi cracked a smile for the first time in what felt like eons. "No cheating, just skill."

Bakura spat to the side. "It's  _ Go Fish,  _ you fool — how much skill could you have?!" Yugi just shrugged in reply.

"That's three games you've won," Dr. Ishtar said. "Another?"

Yugi fiddled with the cards in his hands, preparing for what to say. "Actually… I was hoping to ask you some more questions." He had tarried long enough, and who knew when Malik would return.

Losing interest in the game, Bakura shoved his cards to the center and leaned back. "Oh?"

Yugi had rehearsed countless times on the way over, but in the wake of his encounter with Zorc, it all came out in a panicked rush. "Is there any way I can get out of this? Zorc told me I had to solve the puzzle or he'd kill me, but the Pharaoh said — "

"You spoke to the Pharaoh?" Dr. Ishtar interjected.

"Y-yeah."

"What was he like? Did he remember anything?" Dr. Ishtar leaned forward, eyes wide. "Did he say anything about — "

"Relax, witch. That inbred fool wouldn't remember his own name if it hit him in the face," Bakura drawled.

Dr. Ishtar slammed her hands on the table. "Bakura!"

"He didn't know much," Yugi cut in, sensing the beginnings of an old conflict. "He just said that he couldn't let me solve the puzzle, because it would release Zorc."

"Seems like you're in quite the pickle then, aren't you?"

Yugi nodded. Here it was, the moment his hopes rested on. "Yeah. I was wondering… do you happen to have any ideas? Any advice?"

He was met with silence. A bead of sweat dropped down his temple. "Any — anything works, really!"

More silence. Bakura looked away sullenly. Yugi gulped. "Um. Anything?"

Dr. Ishtar was the first to break, her voice gentle. "I'm afraid we may be the wrong people to ask. I surrendered my own Millennium item, and the original owner of the Millennium Ring yielded his  _ ka _ to Bakura months ago."

Yugi suddenly understood what Malik had meant when he told Zorc that the other two had accepted their fate. "You had items too?"

She touched the base of her neck, a motion so fluid Yugi knew she had done it countless times before. "Yes, the Tauk."

"And you're infinitely more bearable without it!" Bakura added cheerfully, snapped out of his funk. "Imagine, Vessel, this freaky hag that claims to know your future, and then proceeds to get literally every single thing wrong."

Dr. Ishtar's hands were starting to tremble again. "Is there nothing I can do?" Yugi asked desperately.

Bakura smiled. It was not a comforting smile. "If it's any consolation, I don't think my landlord felt a thing. He just blinked right out — very quick."

It was not any consolation. Yugi cast about for another topic to distract himself from the seeming inevitability of his imminent death. "What happens if Zorc is released?"

"What do you care? You won't be around to see it." Bakura shrugged.

Yugi's insides churned unpleasantly. Even if that were true, he didn't just want to lie back and die!

"Once Zorc is unleashed, he will rain chaos upon the land," Dr. Ishtar said gloomily. "Suffering. Death." Bakura nodded along gleefully.

Yugi waited for a 'but'. None came. So that was it? All he could do was solve the puzzle and die? He found his own hands shaking. How could they be so blasé about this? "And I'm just supposed to let that happen?!"

Both Bakura and Dr. Ishtar seemed stunned by his outburst. Yugi blushed, realizing that in his fervor, he had risen out of his seat and knocked the chair over. "I'm sorry," he said quietly. "It just seems wrong." 

He thought of his friends' faces, Grandpa and his mother. How could he knowingly leave them to a world filled with such dangers? "I just… there has to be another way. There has to be!"

"Yeah, yeah." Bakura kicked his feet up onto the table, ignoring Dr. Ishtar's quelling look. "And if you ever find out, let us know."

Yugi tightened his fists. Weren't they willing to do more? But a quick survey of their faces punctured his swell of anger. Dr. Ishtar looked devastated, and even Bakura seemed to have a hard time meeting his gaze. Yugi shrank. Surely, they too had suffered. Dr. Ishtar had said that dark_necrofear had died  _ months _ ago. All that time, they must have been struggling against the same inescapable fate that Yugi now faced, that despite everything, they would perish in the wake of Zorc's rebirth. He coughed and straightened his chair to settle down. "Um, well. I do have, uh, one more question."

"Of course, Mr. Mutou." Dr. Ishtar quickly recovered, patting her headscarf back into place.

"Um. When I meet Zorc… sometimes, he can compel me against my will." Upon noticing Dr. Ishtar's horror, Yugi rushed to add: "That is! When he says my name, I feel like I can't control my body. Is that normal?" He flinched at the last bit. Of course it wasn't normal!

"You gave him your  _ name?" _ Bakura chortled.

"Yes?" Yugi hazarded. "I mean. You know my name." Even if he called him Vessel all the time instead.

Dr. Ishtar shook her head, the horror not leaving her face. "No, Mr. Mutou. We know the phonemes that you respond to. But you seem to imply that you gave Zorc your  _ ren." _

_ Ren? _ That just translated back into "name." "I don't… what's the difference?"

"Your  _ ren _ is more than just sounds — it contains the essence of who truly you are. Knowing it gives one control over you."

Well that was bad. But wait… "What happens if you don't have one?"

"All beings have a  _ ren, _ Mr. Mutou. Even the gods."

"Then what about the Pharaoh? You called him 'nameless'..."

"Not for a lack of  _ ren." _ Dr. Ishtar seemed amused. "I told you that he used every facet of his self to seal Zorc, did I not? We call him the Nameless King in honor of this selfless act."

"Selfless, my ass," Bakura grumbled.

Yugi interjected before he could say any more. "I see, but what about my name? Is there any way for me to get it back?"

"Even if there were," Bakura sneered, confirming Yugi's worst fears, "why would it matter to you? You'll be dead soon enough."

Yugi's insides seized. Dr. Ishtar took one look at his face and scolded, "That's enough, Bakura." She shifted into a sly half-smile. "Or perhaps this is a sore subject for you?"

"Fuck you."

"For all that he calls himself the 'King of Thieves,' he is as stuck here as you or I," Dr. Ishtar explained, unperturbed. "He lost his name to Zorc, and so he falls under his control."

Losing a name, using a name as a seal. It seemed impossible, but Yugi was five shadow incidents too deep to dismiss it as all a fiction. Yugi was interrupted from that train of thought when he saw Bakura practically frothing at the mouth. "So high and mighty, Dr. Witch! At least unlike a certain  _ someone  _ here, I — "

" — oh, that's a shame!" Yugi chirped, eyeing the other. "I guess there's nothing to be done then." Head whirring, he picked up the cards scattered across the table. "Anyone fancy another round of Go Fish?"

* * *

When Malik had finally arrived to tow him back to his room in the high noon, Yugi had forgotten all about the way he had hidden the Pharaoh that morning.

"Finally," the Pharaoh purred, "you have returned."

Yugi gulped. "I, ah. I didn't mean to make you wait this long?"

"Oh, did you really?" Even though his voice was muffled from its position underneath the bedframe, its menace made it very clear that Yugi's explanation was not about to cut it. 

Luckily, Yugi had something else with which to distract him. "But I need to tell you all about what Bakura and Dr. Ishtar said!" With some struggle, he unearthed the chunk and held it aloft beneath the lamplight. The Pharaoh, for his part, chose to be gracious by only shocking him once.

Yugi lifted himself and puzzle onto the bed and curled up into the corner with the now-flattened pillow. He recounted his day, skirting around his encounter with Zorc and carefully leaving out how Bakura had derisively termed the Pharaoh an "inbred fool." The Pharaoh interjected only once at the beginning to express his outrage at the magical residue.

"That persistent  _ worm," _ the Pharaoh seethed as he whisked away the last bits of magic from Yugi's throat. "Are you hurt anywhere else?"

Yugi denied it, but knew that his nightmares would be featuring more than just the man Malik called "Howard" for quite some time. "No, I'm fine. But… you were right. Dr. Ishtar and Bakura didn't have much for me." The Pharaoh curled shadowy tendrils around Yugi's arms in comfort.

He listened carefully to Yugi's tale of how the two were stuck under Zorc's thumb, making considering noises here and there. Embarrassed after their reaction, and fearing that Zorc was right on all counts, Yugi omitted the part where he had admitted to so idiotically giving away his  _ ren. _ He instead provided Dr. Ishtar's explanation.

"... and then Malik came and got me. So you were right all along: they didn't have any ideas." Yugi concluded forlornly.

The Pharaoh made a measured noise. "Maybe. I didn't remember before, but I believe your Dr. Ishtar is correct. I did use my  _ ren _ as part of the seal."

Yugi noted, with some glee, that the Pharaoh had once again shed his ostentatious manner of speaking. "I don't mean to offend you," he started, "but how does that even work?"

The Pharaoh took on a lecturing cadence. "Spells require fuel beyond the incantation. And the essence of a person is the most powerful fuel one could obtain."

Yugi imagined that the essence of a god-king in particular would make for some pretty heady stuff. "Dr. Ishtar said you put all of yourself into the seal, so I guess that made it extra-strong." Extra-strength Pharaoh — it almost sounded like a cleaning product! Yugi held back a giggle.

"Not strong enough, given how brazenly the serpent seems to strut about now," the Pharaoh muttered.

"That's not your fault! It's not like you could stop him from finding all the, uh..."

"Millennium items."

"Yeah, those!"

The Pharaoh shook his head. "Perhaps I believed that splitting the seal into seven portions would make them harder to assemble," he said. "If I had the chance to redo it…"

Yugi waited for more, but the Pharaoh seemed frozen, staring off into the distance. "If you had the chance to redo?" he prompted. At the continued silence, he waved a hand in front of the Pharaoh's face. "Hello?"

The Pharaoh startled and batted half-heartedly at Yugi's fingers with a rush of translucent shadow. "Hush, you. I was thinking."

"Well, want to share?"

The Pharaoh scowled at Yugi's wheedling, but said, "You've given me an idea. I think I know how you can escape, and stop the serpent's revival."

"Really?!" Yugi nearly dropped the gold in his excitement. "Tell me!"

The Pharaoh's jigsaw eyes made contact with Yugi's. "You must solve the puzzle."

**Author's Note:**

> Thank you for reading! Some housekeeping notes:
> 
> \- Updates are every week on Saturdays. This story is fully plotted and half-written.  
> \- While the basis of the magic is rooted in real research, I apologize — I have taken great liberties! Please bear with me and keep your belief suspenders on.  
> \- Rating and tags is/are subject to change. I will warn when they do.


End file.
